Fitting A Cardo Pactalk Slim To An Airoh Commander Helmet

 As the title suggests, thanks to four days of wet weather, I finally had a crack at fitting the Pactalk Slim to the new Airoh that I purchased waaay back in January. It has been sitting patiently in the box and I have been slack with fitting it up because I haven’t really done much adv riding this year - well, apart from the trip to Nundle and the 20 creek crossings of Barry station back in April and for that ride I just used my old Airoh Commander sans comms. The rest of the time I just use my Shoei Neotec no matter which road bike I ride and it has a Pactalk fitted. So, yeah, slack.

Anyway, enough excuses! If I can’t ride I should get some maintenance tasks completed, right? 

One thing I had heard with the Airoh and comms systems is that the pre moulded speaker cups in the helmet are nowhere near your ear canal. Maybe Italians have higher and more rearward set ears…..? 😁 

To do the job right I needed to pull the cheek pads out of the helmet which are integral with the speaker holding foam side panels.

Being careful not to tear this little hook tab at the rear of the cheek pad.

The inside of the bare shell.

I needed to move the speaker cutouts forward and down to get them within a bull’s roar of my ear holes. I took a bit of an educated guess on where the speakers needed to be and marked around them.

I noted Steve said he took about four hours to complete the task on his Airoh. I have a knock-off Dremel type tool I reckon it took me longer to walk to the shed and back than it did to relocate the speaker cutouts! 

I started with a small cutting bit and roughed the hole out.

Needs more meat taken out.

Next I tried a sanding drum which basically just melted the foam out but still, it worked and left a slightly smoother finish.

Speakers in, it was time to refit the cheek pads and run some wires.

The cabling fit nicely under the side skirts of the cheek pads and the control head mount slid between the liner and the shell. The Airoh has a comms port/cutout on the left side of the helmet so a different model of Cardo might have been a better choice for this particular helmet but in the interests of helmet interchangeablity, we went with the Pactalk Slim as it will fit any helmet that you can slip the mounting between the liner and the shell.

The microphone is held in place by a patch of Velvro. The Velcro wouldn't adhere very well to the chin piece despite wiping with an alcohol wipe so I think I will be revisiting this area. Maybe the boom mike that comes with the Cardo kit will work better....but we will see how it goes for now.

When snapping the liner back in around the edge take care to get the rear hook properly engaged and don't rip it off in frustration! (like I was tempted to do)

The final job is to stick the battery pack to the rear of the helmet with some double sided tape. The regular Cardo mounts will not work here as the back of the Commander is steeply angled forward near the collar.

You can see the angle here as well as the comms port that is built into the helmet. The Pactalk Slim mounts by sliding a thin strip between the liner and the shell, It is very snug.

In any case, the tape works well and I don't anticipate any problems, especially if I handle the helmet with care (which I do with all of my helmets -  and you should too!)

Lounge room testing indicates that I have the speakers in the correct position but I will have to wait until it stops raining to give it an on road test.

The old and the new. Yes, clearly I like the Airoh Commander! 

Why?

Well, it is a light helmet at ~1500 grams (3.3lbs) (and it feels light to wear) while still featuring a peak, an internal drop down visor(sunnies), a Pinlock included in the box, an intergrated action camera mounting point, a comms port that will accept a variety of different systems, it is compatible with moto X goggles and is quite a comfortable fit on my head with good, mid level plushness. It is no Arai or Shoei on the plushness scale but then again, it is $400 to 500 Australian dollars cheaper than those two brands adv helmet offerings - both of which do not have the internal visor which is a must-have for me these days. Airoh seems to have changed their sizing though. My first Commander was a Large size. This time I needed an XL to get a proper fit, the new L was simply far too small. Not sure what gives there?

And the colour? 

Yeah, I went high visibilty this time. I must be getting old (or developing common sense) as I see the need to be more visible on our increasingly busy roads. Plus it sort of matches the new RST jacket I bought last year for summer riding, which is a shell jacket that I plan on wearing over either my Tech Air 5 or my motocross pressure suit - it gets hot here in Queensland - but I still want to be able to ride in comfort AND safety. 

Now, if it will just stop raining.....

Cheers.