Installing my Helmet Hearing Aid

Hey everyone, I spent the last couple hours putting my Uproar hearing system into my Fett helmet. Here's how I approached it...


The first thing I did was figure out which mic goes to which ear. They are labeled on the board, so you just have to follow the wire bundle to each mic.


I labeled both the mic and the last few inches of the wire with an L or R. The wire is flat, so it's easy to write on with a felt fine-tip marker. When staring at my helmet, I think of the Rangefinder as on the Right ear. Right = RF


Next, I started planning how I would lay out the wiring around the boards and battery box. This pic shows my final plan. This will allow me to easily reach & adjust the volume control and the on/off switch if the bottom of the circuit board is near the bottom rim of my helmet.


Next, I hot-glued the wires to the circuit board to make sure they stay secure as I wrench and tug the wires around during routing, fitting, and assembly.

Time to prep the helmet for some surgery!


I took out my fan kit, visor, helmet liner sweatbands, RF cap, and RF stalk.


I started the surgery by using a hand drill to start a pilot hole on the left ear cap. The hole I make here will be inside the thin recessed portion of the ear cap. I used a hand drill because of the nearness of the ear cap walls in that thin area. A big drill or Dremel in my hands would have carved up the whole ear. This gives me plenty more fine control.


I went clean through the helmet. Good so far. It's a thick chunk of resin, so it'll take a while with a hand drill.


I drilled a couple more holes spaced so that they would be about the same width as the microphone that would be going in here. I also used some small hobby files to clean up and widen the hole in this ear.


With little in the way, I went ahead and drilled this hole with a power drill. Nothing too delicate that isn't covered up by the ear cap.


That hole is barely noticeable. You'd have to be looking for it to notice it, IMHO.

I took the helmet to the shop and started carving out where the mice would eventually be glued. I used a Dremel with a flex-extension and a round carving tip.


As you grind away the resin, it picks up a static charge. It sticks to everything inside your helmet. You'll need to work slowly and brush away the dust frequently so you can see what you're carving. The left ear cap is very thick, so you'll be able to go to quite a depth before you're in any danger of damaging the helmet ear.


On the other hand, the area where I'll be mounting my right ear mic is pretty shallow. Not a lot of carving is necessary. If the mice were a little smaller, they would fit perfectly in the hole/space between the upper and lower RF ears here.


Last step at the shop was to give the inside and outside of the helmet a rinse to wash away any resin bits or dust. I let it dry for about 3 hours after this step.

I did a powered-up test to make sure that the unit worked, I had proper gain control, and I got a correct stereo sound image. I'm using $10 WalMart earbuds with the foam/rubber ends. I have reservations about using a small speaker from a set of 'cans' in the helmet and the potential there may be for sound feedback.


Before mounting the board and battery box in the helmet, I cut a sheet of plastic to size for the circuit board and coated the back with electrical tape. This will create a non-conductive surface for the solder side of the circuit board and give me a smooth surface to stick the Velcro to.


I hot-glued the microphones into their cavities inside the helmet. I used a lot of glue, and it took a few minutes to set up. I had to hold the mic and wire in position until the glue hardened up.


Here's the right rear side of my helmet. The mic is glued into place, and the circuit board and battery box are mounted with strips of sticky-back Velcro. I can easily reach behind my ear to adjust the volume or even turn the unit on or off. It was really useful to do hearing comparisons...


I glued the earbuds in, leaving about 4 inches of cord for them to hang. This is just enough room to keep them somewhat inside the helmet should they pop out of your ear, but long enough to give you the room needed to pop them in your ear. It is a tight fit with everything re-installed in the helmet, but I can still get it on and off.

Here's the final shots.


This last shot has a filter applied to it, to lighten it up. Can you see the mic in the gap on the ear?

I'll need to touch up the ears a little with some green, black, and silver paint to either get the surrounding parts to match the mic (on the left ear) or to cover my gouges up.

As for how it performs? I can definitely hear better out of my RF ear. The whole mic is exposed to the open. The left ear, on the other hand, only has a narrow gap exposed to the outside. I wonder if a smaller mic on that ear would fare better?

Great idea!

Awesome work mate! Bookmarked!

Sent from my PadFone

Nice job. That was exactly how I planned to approach it. Shame to hear the left ear isn't as loud. How bad is it?

You can totally still hear out of it, but it's probably only about 70% the volume of the other ear. I am seriously considering getting a 3mm mic and slapping it in there. Because that's how you install delicate electronics: slapping.