bearden6521 Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 If you don't have the budget for a rom-fx or other type of voice amp and you still need one...head on over to your local K-mart and pick up a Portable Karaoke player. You will need to modify it but when your done, you'll have a voice amp that cost $10 plus another $5 to $10 for wire tubing, electrical tape, hot glue depending on how much you want to perfect it. NOTE: It comes with one speaker, if you want to have two speakers you will have to purchase another one at radio shack, etc. I made one of these for my GF bucket using two alternate smaller speakers. I had the speaker left over from my previous karaoke player so I decided to make use of it this time around for my AP. Here it is before the breakdown... The first thing I did was set up the speakers. I used two small sized caps from shaving cream cans (Edge caps will work) for the speaker holders, placed some foam in them with hot glue to act as insulation to stop feedback and hot glued the speakers in place. You will need to drill holes into the sides of the paint caps to run the wires through. I also used wire tubing to keep the speaker wire nice and concealed for a better look. Both of the shaving cream can caps fit perfectly over the hovi-mix humps on the inside of the helmet. NOTE: The entire idea for the speaker set up originated from TD-1536 (MH) give or take a little tweaking... www.tk1536.com The first thing to do with the karaoke player is take all of the screws out, seperate it into the two halves and carefully remove the speaker Next, remove the green circuit board and trim it down like in the picture. I used scissors . Make sure you keep the little green thing on there (bottom left side). Please excuse the technical wordings . Also note the dabs of hot glue I placed on it to hold the speaker/mic jack and wiring into place. Next, purchase a black plastic casing from radio shack and cut out a portion of the top to allow your circuit board "on/off" dial and amp/mic jack to be visible/accessible. You will need to use a dremel or similar type of cutting tool for this. Next, purchase a 9v battery connector from radio shack and attach it to the red and yellow wires on the circuit board. Refer to the photo of the circuit board (two pics above) to see the red and yellow wire. Drill a hole through the plastic casing and attach the 9v battery connector to the wires for a clean concealed look. Attach the cover of the casing with the screws provided. NOTE: You will only be able to use three of them due to cutting out the top right corner of the casing. Next, take headphones apart. The picture below is what it looks like with the cover removed. After disconnecting the wires, it will look like this. You will have to trim the black tubing off of the mic/amp wire to reveal the red, white, yellow and black wires. Next, take a paint cap and trim it down so you only have the center portion remaining. Drill a hole near the bottom to slot your mic into the cap. connect the yellow and white mic wires to the black and white mic/amp wires. Once the wiring is completed, I filled the cap up with hot glue to lock everything into place. You will have to ensure that the yellow and red mic/amp wires are routed out of the paint cap in order to connect to your speakers. Here is a front and back pic of the paint cap mic. I am in the middle of painting my AP helmet. Prior to the painting, I set up the mic/amp/speaker combo and took some pics. Here they are. Everything attaches with velcro. I used industrial grade to ensure a good hold. I also used some peel and stick wire clips. Two hold the speaker set up, one for the excess mic/amp wire, and one to hold a fan in place. Once my helmet is completed, I just have to simply pop the stuff back in. Here is a pic of the amp being held in place with velcro, I placed velcro on the top of the amp casing to hold a 9v battery clip in place as well. You can also see the excess wiring being held in place by a wire clip. I put velcro on the clip as well so the clip can be removed from the helmet entirely without having to pop the wires out of it. In this pic you can see the amp and excess wire again along with a portion of the speaker set up tubing. I have the speakers held in place with two wire clips. One is between the two shaving cream caps and the other is on the right side holding the wire tubing in place near the mic. The mic (paint cap) is held in place with velcro. The red and yellow wire connect to the wires on the speaker set up. Once the mic and speaker set up was in place, I trimmed the wires, connected them, electrical taped and tucked them behind the wire tubing (out of sight). In this pic you can see the shaving cream caps and mic. There is one wire clip holding the speaker set up in place. I put some left over velcro on the backside of the green mic for better concealment {SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif. You can also see the fan attached on the left side of the helmet. It's a 9v battery connector, wire tubing, a switch and a small computer fan. All of it is attached with velcro. The fan faces up toward the lenses. The mic has a bendy wire inside so it's fully adjustable to your mouth. Here is a pic of the helmet again. You can kind of get an idea of the set up. I also added a hard hat liner (idea from TD1536 {SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif ) and attached the provided foam with velcro. At this time, everything has been taken out of the helmet. My next step is to paint the interior of the helmet black and then place all of the components back in. Once I'm done I'll post a finished pic. I hope this helps out all the poor troopers in the galaxy...blue light special whew hoo {SMILIES_PATH}/feest.gif ! Once your done, you'll have a fully functionial, volume adjustable two speaker amp...It's quite loud too! {SMILIES_PATH}/salute.gif Click the pics for larger images... Regards, Harry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TD-2272 Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 Nice job Harry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoCKo Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 thanks for that really cool tutorial! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SethB6025 Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 Very cool! I can't wait to hear this sometime. I would love to do this mod but most of the ones I've seen sound cool in a quiet room, but are virtually inaudible in a public place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearden6521 Posted January 6, 2007 Author Share Posted January 6, 2007 This is pretty loud but I do not know how it would sound in a room full of people. I did this to my GF with speakers I purchased from radio shack. They were small ones like Mike used. This time around I used the speakers that came with it. They are over double the size. IMO this one sounds like I'm yelling if it's almost max volume. Once I paint the helmet, I'll take it to work and try it out in a large group of co-workers . Very cool! I can't wait to hear this sometime. I would love to do this mod but most of the ones I've seen sound cool in a quiet room, but are virtually inaudible in a public place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TD-2272 Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 This is pretty loud but I do not know how it would sound in a room full of people. I did this to my GF with speakers I purchased from radio shack. They were small ones like Mike used. This time around I used the speakers that came with it. They are over double the size. IMO this one sounds like I'm yelling if it's almost max volume. Once I paint the helmet, I'll take it to work and try it out in a large group of co-workers . And when you do. you might get some strange looks like i get when people lokk at me with my FINE MOLDS TIE INTERCEPTER on my desk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freakengine Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 Nice tutorial, Harry. Great idea! A coupla questions: Do you have any feedback issues? How did you port the speakers out the front? I mean, did you drill holes through your aerators and then glue them in place instead of using the post method of attaching them? Awesome job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearden6521 Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 I already get them I have the orange pauldron sandy gentle giant bust and orange pauldron koto vinyl statue on my desk. It catches people off guard when they first walk in, most of the time they do the "double take". I get a kick out of seeing how people react. Then I usually say "yeah, I'm a SW nerd." 90% of them don't know I have a costume (yet) he, he, he ! You might get some strange looks like i get when people lokk at me with my FINE MOLDS TIE INTERCEPTER on my desk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearden6521 Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 Only if I turn it up max volume. I hair from that seems to get rid of any feedback. Oops, I forgot to mention that. I have Keith's Hovi-Mix. I had to drill them out (carefully) and cut holes the same size with an exacto knife on the helmet. I glued the HM on with Devcon epoxy (walmart specialty). I've already done this to my GF. I have to glue the HM on my AP once the painting is completed/cured. You won't be able to use the post method with speakers. Do you have any feedback issues? How did you port the speakers out the front? I mean, did you drill holes through your aerators and then glue them in place instead of using the post method of attaching them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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