Thanks buddy! The persons house where this is at is only a couple blocks away from my house, and she is this garrison's GWL and her husband was their former GML. Just a great all around group of people. I've been in good communication with their GWL since last Halloween when I first met her. And even now she told me she considers me a member even though my Fett hasn't gone through the approval process......yet. The biggest problem they have at this Garrison is help setting up these events, everybody wants to dress up but no one wants to help set stuff up or tear down after the event. Which is precisely what happened at the ECCC this year, when the 501st pulled out of that event at the last second. Even though I'm not a member I volunteered my tools and strength to help set up if need be for a few events.Dang Iron yall look great you and your daughter really need to consider joining the 501st!!! Yall are already at all the troops anyways
Iron I think this would be the best case scenario to bond with your daughter over star wars...her being that young would be in the Galactic Academy and of course you would make a great addition to your local garrison! As for being on a troop and no one help clean up, yes that happens at almost every troop I've been on were there has been miscommunication where things were being hauled to where things were being set up to people not helping at all. You stepping up and helping not being a member makes you a honorary member in my book I know our garrison has a hot wall set and a death star wall set and both take at least 6 people to put up and take down so extra hands is always needed. It's all about community...some people just come for the troops and I don't blame them because it could be a pain to tear down or set up but to me the sets is part of the magic too. At the end of the day our Fett suits are amazing but I didn't build this kit to please me I built it to join the cause and to put smiles on people's faces. As for using the bathroom in a Fett kit your screwed wearing a cod piece hahaha!!Thanks buddy! The persons house where this is at is only a couple blocks away from my house, and she is this garrison's GWL and her husband was their former GML. Just a great all around group of people. I've been in good communication with their GWL since last Halloween when I first met her. And even now she told me she considers me a member even though my Fett hasn't gone through the approval process......yet. The biggest problem they have at this Garrison is help setting up these events, everybody wants to dress up but no one wants to help set stuff up or tear down after the event. Which is precisely what happened at the ECCC this year, when the 501st pulled out of that event at the last second. Even though I'm not a member I volunteered my tools and strength to help set up if need be for a few events.
So yeah, my daughter was on the fence about coming to the Happiest Halloween event. She was all gung-ho about it and then at the last second got cold feet. I picked her up from school that day and she told me she thinking about not going. She thought she might look too silly. I told her no way and that she'd fit right on in. Plus she is very tall for her age (11 years old), she stands at 5'4". I talked her into it. And by the end of the event I could tell she was having a great time. And by the end she said she was glad she changed her mind cause that was a lot of fun! Even a few members complimented her costume saying it was pretty awesome! And when they found out her age, their jaws dropped - hahaha! I guess its not everyday that an 11 year old kid has Star Wars Costume worth $2300.
My kid is kinda shy around folks and that may have had something to do with her not wanting to come out. But I lightened the mood when a TK I know who was suiting up at the GWL's house (as we all were) I saw what it took to get into his TK and I said to him: "So how big of a production is it if you have to go #1 fully suited?" He kinda smiled and said: "You hold it!" I then put him in a scenario that would be very uncomfortable for most, so I ask him "So lets say your trooping in a parade and all of a sudden it hits your gut hard and you HAVE to do the #2 business right just then, what do you do?" He said: "That would be an absolute problem and one that probably would be unrecoverable." My daughter hearing this was laughing by this point. (And the TK was too) I think most Fett's can say that if you had a bad bowl of Chili and it just hits yer gut suddenly that getting out of the suit to handle said business would be a pretty big problem, yeah?
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-Iron
So after our talk yesterday I think I found the solution. I ordered a few parts anf im waiting for the pieces to come in the mail...I'll keep you postedHey ya Fett's!
Been a few minutes, but I thought I would provide an update to the MiCom situation. I attempted with using a low profile speaker called the Esquire 2 by Harmon Kardon.
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This is an 8 watt speaker that I strategically placed right under the abdominal armor. It was very discreet, but what I found was that in noisy settings (e.g. a very large con) it was difficult for people to hear the voice. In an outside setting with few people it worked great, it also worked great inside my home. My local community center has a large reception/lobby area where many people gather before events. And in that setting, again, found that folks could hardly hear me.
And so.....time for a speaker upgrade. I searched high and low for that low profile, yet powerful speaker but had no luck. I turned to VoiceBooster and picked up the MR2300 - which is a 20 watt speaker.
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Another thing I kinda liked about the Harman Kardon Speaker was the fact it had built in Bluetooth (V4.1), which I used for the MiCom. On the MiCom side I used this as a way to push the audio.
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The cool thing about this device is that it has a slider switch to enable either TX or RX (Transmit or Receive) This Bluetooth device is very tiny making it ideal to conceal inside my Boba Maker Gauntlet. In fact, the entire MiCom kit is inside my Gauntlet. Since the VoiceBooster MR2300 Speaker is not Bluetooth capable I bought another one of these devices to go along with it.
Sadly, I couldn't place the MR2300 speaker under the abdominal armor. I thought about the hip pouch but it just felt weird having the voice projected outwards from my side. So in thinking about it, I thought why not use the front thigh pouch? Sure, it's a low speaker placement but if it's loud enough I didn't think it would sound too bad.
The ECCC...
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...is coming up here in the next couple weeks so I thought that may be a good time to give it a test. But last weekend I was summoned once again by the community to suit up to help promote the upcoming events for 2023 including the annual Halloween event. Since it was going to be in that reception/lobby area that is quite noisy, I thought why not try it out there. I will say it is much improved, having the power of 20 watts is just what I needed. In fact, it wasn't even at full blast the little amp still had more to power to push out if needed. I did find it nice that if an adjustment was needed it was a simply matter of lifting the flap and having the volume controls right there.
I will say that the speaker is not as big as the thigh pocket, so to overcome that I used a little bit of foam cut in such a way so that the controls were at the top of the pouch. Also, I know it looks bulky, but it honestly doesn't weigh all that much and when walking around with it in my thigh pocket didn't even notice a big difference.
In short, here is a diagram to my current setup...
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And so far, I'm pretty happy with it!
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Here's a crazy idea, Now I'm not a huge Audiophile or Speaker Engineer. But why not build out the little center chest piece of armor to be a mini 25 watt speaker?
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Cheers,
-Iron
Krewkid82So after our talk yesterday I think I found the solution. I ordered a few parts anf im waiting for the pieces to come in the mail...I'll keep you posted![]()
O wow!! Biker scouts are awesome! We have quite a few biker scouts in our squad always fun trooping with themKrewkid82
I'd love to see what you came up with. I know speakers can be some cha-ching the smaller and more powerful you want. But I'd be willing to pay $500+ for that perfect Boba Fett speaker. I've just started the building process of a ROTJ Scout Trooper, and just ordered my boots last weekend. But it seems I'd be able to place that MR2300 speaker inside of the pouch and lucky me, the pouch sits up higher on a Scout Trooper....
(Also do those two pouches seem familiar to anyone?)
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After the event last weekend I stayed dressed (Helmet on too) and I walked into our local grocery store (Safeway) to buy myself a 20oz bottle of Coke and the finger pointing and jaw drops I got was pretty incredible. A few people - employees and shoppers wanted pictures, but utter amazement came from me projecting the MiCom's Boba Fett Voice!
-Iron
Yeppers and the plan after that is to build a 1:1 sale of the Aratech 74-Z Speeder Bike to compliment the costume!O wow!! Biker scouts are awesome! We have quite a few biker scouts in our squad always fun trooping with them
It looks waaaayy more comfortable than my scuba harness hahaha**UPDATE**
Since I have more than enough seatbelt material I decided to go ahead with attaching it to my older MoW Studio Jetpack Harness. I picked up an extra Full Metal Fett US Divers Buckle and X-Shaped Tri Glide Adjuster for my Big Dane Harness. Which I hope to get into this year just as soon as I can ditch some of the winter weight that was put on - hehehe!
In the meantime, I got a neighbor lady to assist with the sewing. Here is what was done:
1) The Seatbelt material was sewn to the inside of the MoW Studios Jetpack Harness.....
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2) The Seatbelt material was sewn directly to the US Divers Buckle. I know typically these are not sewn on but I simply did it for convienience....
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3) And here is what it looks like together....
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The weight of the buckle pulls it down slightly and with my vest of armor on, it peeks only about halfway out, which is what I was aiming for! The X-Shaped Tri Glide Adjuster was put on just for visual and is not functional - I just slide it to where it needs to be, which is off to my left hand side.
Cheers,
-Iron