Just installed a helmet fan!

[Darth Skellington]

So this week I bought a helmet fan off of TK-4261 on the Legion Boards.

http://www.501stforums.com/forum/viewto ... 33f68035f6


I received it today and installed it easily. Seems to work great. I'll be trooping the Plano Balloon Festival this coming weekend, so I'll give a pratical report on how well it works then. I tried taking the dog for a walk in my bucket today, but due to rain, the temperature is a comfy 75 degrees, and...to make things worse...there was a wonderful breeze down by the lake. As TR helmets funnel air up into them...this completely negated the need for a fan...so I turned it off. While I don't wish for hotter weather, it would be nice to see how the fan will work.

Anyway, I have the fan positioned so it blows air down on the visor, thus reducing fogging and giving me ab reeze on my face. Due to the angle of the helmet....the fan blows forward slightly, and not right into my eyes...so hopefully it won't dry out my contacts.

As you can see from the photos, it is velcroed in place above my visor, with teh battery pack velcroed to my right "cheek". This is a SA Fibre-glass helmet, so there is plenty of room. I highly doubt this would fit in a Don Post. I thought about putting the battery pack dead center in front of my mouth/nose, but I found that claustrophobic. Had I put it there, I could have flicked the fan on or off with my teeth. Off to the side where I have it, I can easily reach into my helmet while wearing it and hit the switch.

Also, Curtis puts an Imperial sticker on his fans. As teh sticker side was the side I needed to velcro, I peeled the sticker off and affixed it to the intake side instead, as shown in the photos.

[Befallen]

I have to ask, what is up with the duct tape??

[LuciousTalvloinne]

Duct Tape is wonderious for keeping things from not moving.

[Darth Skellington]

That's not duct tape....it's spacer's tape.

When I first attempted to attach my visor (I'd requested it unattached), I tried hot glue. This didn't hold very long. I used duct..er..spacer's tape to hold the visor in place whie the glue dried. I then used a larger amount of tape to hold the visor in place...permanently. Or....until the temperature rose above 70..at which point the visor rebelled. Finally, I said the heck with it, bought some 2-part epoxy, and glued it in place, and used tape to hold it firmly in place while the epoxy cured. Since then I've not tried to remove the tape. Since it's taped on there good, and not hurting anything, I've chosen to leave it. Also, I don't want to pull on the visor unecessarily, possibly weaking the bond with the helmet. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Befallen]

What can I say, it looked like duct tape to me lol. But that was pretty much what we did to my helmet, But now we are thinking about using velcro for the visor. Since I have red and Black. using red during night events, black for day. would make it for a easy switch

[Darth Skellington]

Yep..if you want to switch out..velcro is the way to go. Are you using the FP visor? My FP visor is rather rigid....I would think it would pop off the velcro as it tried to straighten out.

[Darth Skellington]

Oh...in other news....the velcro hjolding the fan popped off the helmet while it was sitting on the helmet stand. Looks like I may have to glue the velcro to the helmet....probably cause the inside of the fibreglass helmet is uneven.

[MagnaPrime]

I have an FP visor that is velcroed and thus far haven't had any problems with it popping off, though I did use a lot of velcro. My one issue was when I pulled it out to do a quick repaint it pulled some of the velcro with it, but that was more of an inconvenience than anything else. I'm using a DP bucket though, maybe the difference in material could be a factor?

[Darth Skellington]

So the Balloon Festival troop got cancelled due to the Vader Balloon being stuck in Chinese customs. Sooo....I haven't had a chance to test my fan....until today.

Today a marched in an 8 block parade in Dallas. It was at 10:00am...so the temperature was probably around 80-ish in the shade. When we started marching the sun came out and the temperature probably rose to somewhere between 80-90. Overall a pleasant day but still warm enough to make things uncomfortable in armor. Humidity was probably 70-80%

The fan worked well. It got a relatively cool breeze going the entire time. It was not a gust a wind by any means, but certainly enough to keep air circulating. Also....NO FOGGING ISSUES! No fogging at all...even when I tried to fog up the lens with my breath. I also had no problem with it drying out my contacts..although this is in part due to it blowing forward toward the visor somewhat an not straight down onto my eyes.

Overall, I'd say the fan is a success. Should work well for any SA fibreglass or expanded helmet.

[Befallen]

Very good news. Glad it worked out for you