PROJECT LOG [3D Printed] The Iron suit project -

Hello boys and girls.


Time for another project to spend all of my spare time on

Since my last build, I've acquired myself a 3D printer. Since then I've been doing my best to perfect my own, and the printers’ ability to make the most flawless prints possible.
I’ve been printing, more or less, 24/7 for the past 4 months, and feel that I am now ready to jump into a new, and probably the most demanding project yet.

The idea is to create a full size Iron man suit with a built in, liquid cooled, gaming rig. Now as every part is 100% 3D printed, I expect it will take about 3 months, just to complete printing the entire suit, then comes the rest of the processing, the fillings, the sanding, the painting etc. so I hope you guys will be patient with this one

I’ve been experimenting with ABS and PLA and have come to feel that I have perfected both materials in terms of the possible quality of the print contra the speed/time it takes to create a good print.

For this project, I will be using PLA. The main reason for this is not that it is easier to work with or process when the print is done, on the contrary, ABS would have been a lot easier to work with, as it is easier to sand, easier to remove and repair failures (acetone and lighter tricks ), but it is purely because of the fumes that are exhausted when printing with ABS, and since my printer is inside the house, printing nonstop, I don’t want to expose my children to these toxic fumes, and that’s why I’ve chosen the corn based alternative PLA.

Before I continue, I have to give a great shout out and thanks to DaDave, for having inspired me to make this build as well as even making this project possible. He has, from existing pepakura files, converted everything to 3D and actually built a fully wearable Iron Man suit. Make sure to check it out, it’s pretty awesome

Now on with the project:

MATERIALS FOR THE SUIT:
- 3D printed PLA parts
- Servomotors and arduino board(s)
- LED lighting and wiring
- Home made or modded mannequin to wear/stabilize the suit
- Polyester filler
- Glue... A LOT of glue...
- Paint (color scheme not 100% decided yet, I'm thinking matt black )
- Nuts and bolts and probably a lot more as the project evolves.

HARDWARE:
- ASUS ROG STRIX Z270I GAMING mini ITX or the MSI Z270I GAMING PRO CARBON AC mini ITX
- GFX preferably a 1070/1080 GTX or 1080 GTX Ti

The rest is still under speculation Sponsors more than welcome lol


Now on with the fun part.

I started with the last roll of PLA filement I had left, which happened to be red/orange, but it doesn't really mean anything, since I will fill, prime and paint it into the color scheme I want. I'm just happy it wasn't pink

The very first part of the suit, the left palm in the process of being printed:







Fingers:



As you can see below I failed terribly with the supports. The bottom of the fingeres went spaghetti on me and even ripped off when the supports were removed. I've already made new fingers, that are without flaws, but the pics are early stage, so I'm wearing the bad ones:





Helm being printed, sadly I didn't take pictures of all the parts being printed, but I don't think that matters once you see the result :

The top of the helmet/head:



The Jaw:



Bottom of the face:



And finally the helmet completed:

Front:



Front from the side, closed:



Front from the side, opened:



Here I have the left upper arm being printed, again didn't take too many photos of the process, but I think you get the point by know :



Arms completed:



The re-seller I'm purchasing my filament from, has upgraded/modified the filament I've been using so far, making it more red, I guess doe to complaints from customers, saying it wasn't red enough, I can only agreed Doesn't really matter though, as everything is going to be painted, it has no impact on the final result.





A part of the shoulder finished:



Left shoulder completed, here you can CLEARLY see the color difference between the original I was using, and the "upgraded" version of filament:



Here I've finished the chest. 2 Kilos of PLA filament went into completing it





The arc reactor, temporarily assembled just for the show of it I will be adding LED's to it later:



Mounted inside the chest:





Here I'm about half done with the suit, it's being supported by some construction wood I had lying around, nothing is mounted together yet:



I am currently working on painting the helmet.

Here I've programmed my Arduino and mounted the servo for the helmet :


Stay tuned for more pics, I hope to have more for you in the upcoming week

Thanks for looking

And I thought I was a geek!

Can't wait to see it when you're done!

Update 12-01-17

Hey guys


I've finally finished the helmet/head for the suit.

Here are some progress pics as well as finished result:

Filler added, and a lot of sanding has been going on:





Primer and first layer of paint added. I've chosen matt black, it's not dried up yet in the pic, so it looks a bit glossy:



Faceplate ready to get painted:



First layer of fluorescent signal red added, the camera has bad lighting, making it look more orange than it actually is I am hoping to add a UV light above the suit when I'm completely finished. This will allow parts of it to glow in the dark



The finished result, here you can see the red color better:





Lighting added the to helmet:



In the dark:



Here again a small video of the helmet, now painted:


Hope you like it

As always, thanks for looking

Holy. Crap.

This is awesome!

JrClocker said:

And I thought I was a geek!

Can't wait to see it when you're done!

Click to expand...

Haha thanks, you can never be geek enough

ATMINSIDE said:

Holy. Crap.

This is awesome!

Click to expand...

Glad you like it

I'm hooked, actually you had me at the hand, that's gonna be awesome.

Dang that's wicked sick!

Ya, I'm liking this. Look good Cown.

This is gonna be awesome!

Thanks guys, glad you like it

Update 04-02-2017

Hi guys

Time for a little status update.

I'm currently working out of town, and will be doing so for the remaining period of February. I hope to get started on the filling, sanding and assembly as soon as I get back home.

But for now, here's a couple of pics of how the suit is starting to take form:

The back, completed:



The front, completed:



The big picture



The hips and legs are all that remain to be printed. I will start again when I return.

I hope you like it and thanks for looking

Words fail to describe the epicness of this project.

Please continue.

Update 22-04-2017

Hey guys


Time for a small update, just to let you know, the project is still at a go.

I've been having some issues with the primers and fillers I've been using, mainly causing cracking in the jointed sections as well as cracking of the paint.

Here are some pics to show you:


Chest with filler sanded down:



Here I've used polyester filler along with a plastic primer, now from a far it looks okay, but if you take a closer look you can see that the joined sections of the parts have cracked through the filler:





I then sanded some more, switched the filler with a glass fiber enhanced filler and the spary filler with a more professional one from Motip, hooping it would be stronger, and keep from cracking.



Now after that I got careless and tested out the black lacquer spray paint on the chest, not making sure I was finished with the fillers, I then had to sand some of it down and reply more filler... Now comes the epic fail.. The paint was acrylic, causing the filler to crack!





Now what has my stupid *** learned from this? RTFM!

So my work is still ongoing with the chest, having to make sure I sand down all the black paint, reapply filler and primer, in order to get to the finishing line

More pics to come as soon as I've finished fixing my epic fail

Thanks for looking!

Update 27-04-2017

Hi Guys



So I've "almost" finished the chest. I've added the right color scheme, still need to fix minor cosmetic issues, but other than that, this is pretty much it

Black paint added:



Preparing for the red fluorescent, with the yellow filler, it kinda looks like a bumblebee





Red color added:



And done, as you can see, I need to remask and reapply black paint to get perfect edges around the red areas, I should have started with the red, after finding out that if there is a darker color below, it will be visible trough the florescent paint, oh well, I guess it's good to learn something new every once in a while







Started on the hands, the right one is already sanded and prepared to be primed



Hope you like it, and as always, thanks for looking

Edit: For some reason I can't edit the title of the thread with the right update date, it still says 12-01-2017, no matter how many times I try

Looking great Cown. I can't wait to see the finished project.

To edit the title try clicking "Edit Post" then "Go Advanced". You should be able to edit the title that way.

Very cool build. Which slicer software are you using for your prints?

How did I miss this??? I'm so subbed I'm growing a periscope.

Blaylock said:

Looking great Cown. I can't wait to see the finished project.

To edit the title try clicking "Edit Post" then "Go Advanced". You should be able to edit the title that way.

Click to expand...

Thanks mate Yup, I've done this, more then once, but it doesn't seem to have any effect.

Moratek said:

Very cool build. Which slicer software are you using for your prints?

Click to expand...

Glad you like it I'm using Simplify3D, and am very happy with it. The configuration options are awesome.

Alaric said:

How did I miss this??? I'm so subbed I'm growing a periscope.

Click to expand...

Thanks man, I hope I won't disapoint

There's a timer on how long you can edit a thread title unless you're a moderator.

ATMINSIDE said:

There's a timer on how long you can edit a thread title unless you're a moderator.

Click to expand...

Damn, well that explains it Thanks

- - - Updated - - -

Hey guys


So I've now finished one of the hands and wanted to show you guys how it looks

Testing and aligning the glove:





Repulsor added:



LED light:



Final testing:







So after some burn marks aligning the fingers, making them stick with hot glue while my hand was inside, I've finished one of them, and am pretty happy with the result.

Hope you guys like it too, thanks for looking