Building a Daft Punk Helmet on Thoughts of Mike

Part 3: The Electronics Package

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0100

I talked a bit about the process of building the shell in part 2. Now it’s time to figure out what goes inside it — the electronics.

1. Rough Plan Outline Link to heading

I spent a lot of time before beginning this project thinking about the way I wanted to light it. The images of Daft Punk from the early 2000s and Bangalter’s glowing lights immediately came to mind. Over the years I have seen other people recreate this helmet with varying degrees of polish and sophistication. The ones that went all the way were usually soldering loose LEDs together and multiplexing with Arduinos and big bundles of wire. And I don’t think I saw any that allowed the helmet to talk to other devices. That left me with a few ideas to work with.

Part 2: Printing the Shell

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0100

In part 1, I laid out the plan for this project. Since then, the printer has been running. This post covers the first real milestone: a printed helmet shell.

The Model Link to heading

I covered model selection in the last post. I landed on this one from Thingiverse — good detail, clean geometry, and workable topology. The first order of business was getting it into Fusion 360 to scale it to wearable dimensions and cut it into chunks that would actually fit on the build plate.

Part 1: The Plan

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 09:49:05 +0100

For many years, I’ve wanted to make a replica of Thomas Bangalter’s Daft Punk helmet — the silver one. Full size, wearable, with working lights. And recently I decided to do something about it. This is one of those projects that floats around in my head in different forms but never materializes because of the scope and complexity. But that ends now.

Why? Link to heading

A lot of elder millennials will remember when Daft Punk first made an appearance. I listened to a huge amount of their music when I was in high school and college, and it’s still on a steady rotation today. I always liked the costumes they wore. I guess it was to help separate their personal identities from the music they created.