Inferno Squad Pilots Chest Box Build - magentic fixing

[FarEast[TX]]

So I have the WTF chest ox along with the Blockade Runner Light and switch box, Aluminium Falcon Greeblies and also Klaus Windstrosser's cogs.

First things first after everything being trimmed, sanded back it was time to workout the layout.

I used masking tape to then start laying out all the placing.

Matt was awesome enough to provide me with the STL for light defuser boxes that allow the lighting from the LED's to spread over the entire area and thus giving a better result than placing them directly behind.

One of the issues I found was that the switch controller box sits too high if mounted directly to the chest box, pushing the switches way too high - I made a 5mm shim around the control bo that allowed the switches to sit perfectly on the facing of the chest box.

Also the assembly of the control box wasn't exactly perfect causing the switches to sit at a slight angle - this was corrected and then to prevent the switches difting I used leftover abs to create bays for each switch to sit in.

The kit also comes with 3D printed white trimming and to be honest its not really worth the bother and I cut my own from 0.2mm Tamiya Placard, backed it with double sided tape and then fixed in place.

With the difficult part done I now need to start looking at how to close the box up.

The plan is to use velcro on the front and back joins to hold them in place then using the cogs create another facing plate to cover the joins - the cogs then screw into place to hold everything down.

Once that's sorted I will then work on magnetising the back to fix to the chest plate.

 

 

 

 

 

[FarEast[TX]]

Soooooo the chest box is done!

But so here is an update to the WIP - I decided to fully close the chest box and to hide the side seams using ABS paste that I make myself.

First job was to trim the sides so that the top and bottom halves of the lined up at the sides perfectly and thus making life easier later when it came to cleaning it all up.

The second job was to chemically weld the end caps to the lower body - Ignore the Velcro that was part of an experiment that I decided to scrap. Using the metal disk and the screw I tightened  the cog down - with the chemical reaction this then completely closed the seam making for a very neat finish.

Next up was the 3000mha power pack - nothing fancy just a cheap one that can power the LED's for a day of trooping without requiring charging and also can be charged from a wall socket.  This was bonded permanently into the chest box and wired up.

Holes were drilled in the back for both the power level LED's and also the charging port.

With everything in place the sides were sealed shut and the top section clapped down, again the metal cogs and a metal disk on the inside were used to pull the end cap flush with the sides. I then used ABS paste so fill in the seams and ranges of wet and dry sand paper from 180 to 4000 was used to smooth the sides flat and polish to a satin finish.

From there I switched to polishing compounds to bring it up to a gloss finish.

So with the box closed up I shot this short video for you all - you notice the back has a mounting plate that is magnetised and in the next section I will take photos of this part and also the chest plate.

Link to the above video here:

 

[Blackwatch[CMD-DCA]]

looks good.  the last two chestboxes I built last month were WTFs and I made the upper and lower as separate assemblies.  it took some doing and some figuring out, but I had the upper with its fans and lower with its LEDs and power sources then I glued the two together with ABS paste. Worked great.   

[FarEast[TX]]

The original plan was to be able to open it so i could access the battery pack and other internals - I didn’t bother with fans as you’d need pretty powerful and noisy ones to push air up through the hoses to the helmet, instead I have a 40mm fan situated at the front of the helmet that pulls clean air through the mesh of the teeth and a shroud that defuses the air across my mouth and nose and across the sides of the helmet. 

 

 

[FarEast[TX]]

So the chest box is attached using stacked rare earth magnets (Neodymium Magnets) and bonded to both the chest plate and the special bracket on the reverse side of the chest box.

 

This are first attached to the correct placing with super glue and then 2 additional magnets are attached to the 4 upper areas and superglued to the magnets blow. Finally they are coated in liquid rubber to hold in place and protect them from damage and separation.

The reverse side of the chest box has a bracket supplied by WTF, on this I attached magnets to both the outside of the bracket and the inside - this is to prevent the outer magnets pulling off when you remove the chest box. Again magnets on the inner surface are stacked to increase the power -

However on the inside the magnets are locked into place with black hot glue and then mounted to the chest box - the outer are coated in liquid rubber to protect the surface of the chest armour and prevent scratching.

I will post a video of just how secure the setup is.

[FarEast[TX]]

So with a long summer break and then a few additional days for Typhoons I'm not only done with Iden but I complete Gideon too and approved to boot!

Commander Iden Versio TI

Del Meeko TX

Gideon Hask TI

[RAIDER[COTG]]

Looks good @FarEast!  Thanks for sharing the tutorial!

[IcyTrooper[CMD-DL]]

Nice work and congrats on the approvals!