Tron Legacy Kool Party Light Suit

I was looking for a Halloween party store near Montreal Canada that had a decent Tron Legacy costume...

I found the typical one but guess what! I didn't quite fit and I tried all the sizes!!  Damn....also It did not lit up at all (passive lighting)... they were quite pricey too. 70+tax ...not including boots, gloves ..etc.

So this year I got myself a kick in the butt mad and made myself my OWN TRON costume, which turned out to be quite a success in parties.

I set myself a fixed budget of 200$ ..but over exceeded that amount because I wanted to shine at any party...but you can get almost the same result under the 100$ mark.


Took me week to complete, 40 hours of work.

Materials needed to complete the project:

-2 Blue  Play Mats (Gym) @ Walmart.                
-1 Ski-Doo Helmet     (any used one will do)                                
-3M of white led tape roll.
-NeoSport body suit. @ ebay
-Black foam Abs Mat (for the front chest plastron)
-Mazda3 Angel eyes LED Glow rings (or the cheapest you can get at ebay).
-2x 11.1v Helicopter Lipo battery  2000ma.  @ HobbyKing
-Black cover leather like material fabric with holes in them.
-White foam for light diffraction. (left over packaging)
-Funny eyes Lens ( Manson model) @ Ebay
-Black Gloves that you can cut. 
-Tron Legacy Deluxe Tron disc. 
-6x Elastic black strips.
-Emptied 2L coke bottle


Tools:
-Metal saw to cut helmet front part
-Lots of Glue STicks (4 packs of 10 batons)
-2 packs of electrical black wire at home depot
-Soldering Iron + solder.
-Scisors
-Exacto.


Part 1 : Body Suit. (12 hours)
To make the Tron lights effect:
  -I started by cutting the Blue  Play Mats with 1" wide strips and then Glue stick them to the NeoSport body suit where the stitches meet up. 
  -I cut some of the 3m Led tape in 6 leds sections and stick them above the Blue  Play Mats strips. 
    (They were cut because a straight line requires a lot of strip leds and it does not allow you to a lot of free body motion)
-Soldered everything toghether to the 11.1v Lipo battery via a Toggle switch and a Fuse.

Part 2: Helmet (10 hours)
  -Took an old Ski-doo helmet and actually CUT the front part of it with the metal saw.
  -Emptied the interior until I see the foam because it was too small to fit in my big head.
  -Layout 2 parts of the Led Stips to cover partially each side of the helmet in a oval pattern.
 -Cut out pieces of the outside Blue Mats foam corners to make the triangle shapes and place them in the helmet middle from front to back.
 -Also used 2 other led stips (always using the 3M but cutted ) to fill in the cutted front helmet part and placed them in the circonference of the 2 front hole of the helmet.
-I also put 2 switches, 1 when you put on the helmet it closes the circuit and the other one is a permanent all LED on.
-Stuck the 11.1v battery in back of the helmet and stuck it there with the Glue gun.

Part 3: The Plastron (Chest protector) (18 hours)
   -That was the most complicated part of the project.
   -Cutted the Abs mat black foam to the plastron wanted shape.
   -Stuck the 4 Angel eyes to each corners of the plastron and stuck them with glue gun and extra string.
   -Cut a whole in the middle with an exacto and place another led strip in its circonference, also used some white foam to diffract the light and place the  "leather" fabric over the  whole plastron front (no covering the middle light hole). 
  -Sodered everthing togheter (I used to connector to be able to connect the battery to the light suit and the plastron led lights).
 -The plastron is held by 6 elastric black strips going all the way back to a smaller section of the Abs mat (Oval cut shape) so that it is held by something resistant.
 - On the back Abs mat (Oval cut shape), I glued a Tron Disc onto a 2L bottle bottom ...the bottle bottom was cut out.


Part 4: (optional)
 -Put the manson funky eye lens 
 -Get some cool motocross boots. (optional)
 -Decorate yourself with white hair and skin ...
 -Learn some cool robot moves
 -Play that MUSIC!!!!!


NOTE:
***** Lipo battery are very dangerous!!! When they are shorted out, they generate a lot of heat may explode on you.
When connecting your fuse, IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE connected nearest your battery location so that when wires are shorted out by mistake, the fuse is blown ... Also make sure you don't damage them (deformation) as they may also explode when recharging.