Chapter 2
(Scaling)
Scaling. Why is it important? Quite frankly without scaling most of the time your build will not look very proportional or even fit. Scaling is something you really need to make sure you do well and take time into doing. Without this step you’ll be remaking tons of parts because they are either too big or too small, and when building you definitely don’t want a helmet that doesn’t even fit on your head.
(FYI ARMORSMITH IS NOT ON MACBOOK I’m sorry my fellow macbook people but your best bet is to essentially get a 3D scan import it into blender and scale that way)
A tutorial I love to recommend is definitely this tutorial by a cosplayer named Frankly Built. How to Scale 3D Printed Armor & Cosplay using Armorsmith! This covers essentially the process I will be doing however due to armorsmith being very wonky at times I highly recommend getting a 3D scan if possible. My friend KaeSpoon from the 405th created this tutorial on How to Obtain and import a 3D scan into armorsmith. Which I highly recommend.
As the process goes you will buy armorsmith which is a 40$ program that really helps scale your armor and other things. (Find more info here ArmoredGarage.com) Once launched it should look remotely like this (minus the avatar which mine is already loaded in there)
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From there you will need a second person to help you with all your measurements. At the bottom Right you should have the property tab and if you go down you should be able to locate all the measurements for your avatar.
From here you’ll go in and take your measurements. Armorsmith Defaults to Millimeter but if you’d like to switch to the imperial system click on Settings<Preferences<Measurements<Current Units. But for now I’ll stick with Millimeters.
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Double maybe even triple check all your measurements before continuing. However once all of your measurements are set and you have an avatar that looks like your body you need to import your files which should be located in the top right corner of your workspace panel. Once you have a file imported. Use the Attach tool to add it to where it belongs. From there you can scale it using the bottom left or the scale tool at the top left!
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You’ll want to attach and scale each part individually. Definitely USE a reference when scaling so then you get something proportional not only to
your body but to the actual suit you are trying to replicate. Do this for every part and you should get something that looks pretty good.
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I like to write down my scaling somewhere else so then I don’t lose it. From there I took some extra filament and the scaling of each part and printed out the handplates, fingers, shoulder pad, and forearm parts to double check the scaling of the parts. These were printed with 2 walls and 5% gyroid infill.
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Not strong by any means but it gets the work done for a test part. From there I used that previous piece to get a good scale for the actual parts, just simple estimations using the part and my fingers and the slicer to see where parts start and end. I will not be doing this with the rest of the suit simply because of how much material and money it costs to do it. Instead, in armorsmith I use the measure tool and then measure the parts of my shin and thighs.
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Both The shin and the Thigh were not scaled correctly due to incorrect measurements… However I worked around that by trying something that should work and that is measuring how long those parts are on my body and then attempting to get them to a decent size for my body! I then imported that into my Prusa Slicer and use their measuring tool to actually get the same size in length!
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For the helmet I took a helmet I’ve already scaled to my head and put it in the slicer and compared it. Since 100% scale worked I’ll be scaling it to 101% to make sure I have enough room for the visor when that is made. When scaling helmets make sure that the width and length are enough to fit your head!
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Triple Checking your measurements is very crucial and I now say that with this experience… I probably should have been more patient and really taken my time with making sure the measurements were perfect but I didn’t have the patience for that. However the modifications and ways I did it still work for scaling though it may be a whole lot more work and more complex. Luckily it seems that my hip and Chestplate scaling should be just fine and likely the boots too. Just keep in mind with the boots you scale them to the actual boot you want to use. However with Scaling now done it’s time to move on to the next chapter!
Chapter 3
(3D printing and Slicing)
3D printing… Where oh where do I start… For 3D printing this suit I’ve switched to Orca slicer. (Orca Slicer) Mostly because it seems everyone is using it at this point and from what I’ve heard it’s much better than most other slicers by this point in time. [ATTACH=full]353866[/ATTACH]
3D printers tend to have a mind of their own and only work about half the time… Luckily using a good slicer program tends to bring that percentage up to about 90% which is great. Either way from there I have my filament mostly tuned because I know people who use a Neptune 4 Max with Elegoo’s Rapid PETG so I just grabbed their settings for their slicing. There are plenty of tutorials on Youtube on how to tune filament because I kinda suck at doing that. From there I imported sets of parts. I organized them by the Boots, Legs, Belt, Chestplate, Arms, Hands, and Helmet. These are how I divided up the files to start importing and slicing. [ATTACH=full]353867[/ATTACH]
I was able to fit the entire Belt, both arms, both hands, and the helmet into one build plate for each group. The little strapping guides I also increased the wall count from 4 to 5 simply because these parts are going to be holding a lot of stress from the strapping system. They are also being printed perpendicular to the grain of the straps so then they don't split as easily. However, this takes away from the quality of those printed pieces and instead puts it in strength which should be better for those strapping guides. Additionally in orca slicer you can right click a model with several pieces and go to Split<Split into Objects which allows all the models to be separated if there are several in a model.
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These are the first parts I printed for this project and the settings I used for strength are 4 walls and 5% gyroid infill. This was to balance both strength and weight as 3D printed things can get really heavy REALLY fast. So it's good to try to at least cut down on weight where you can. From my experience Walls are the main type of setting that really gets you strong parts and reducing your infill percentage can save you a lot of time, money, and painful shoulders in the long run.
Now let's talk about when you have parts that are way too big to fit on your printer! Because there are a couple tricks I’ve learned! When you have a piece that you want to print that is way too big for the printer there are tools you can utilize! One of these tools is the slice feature present in most slicers now. This tool provides a cut for a model along a certain plane that you can change the position of the cut.[ATTACH=full]353870[/ATTACH]
Typically when cutting a model and slicing it up you want to slice it at a point of low detail. In this case there are a lot of flat edges where I plan to cut my model. This makes it easier to put together when you print out both pieces, Sand down that seam edge, And fill it so then it disappears! Another good thing to know is depending on how you print out one of the pieces you should probably print the other piece in the same way so then the grain lines up. This should help with making sanding a little bit easier since now you don’t have to worry about 2 different grains when sanding and don’t have to worry about struggling to take down those pesky layer lines. So with all that in mind let’s talk about support material!
Support material when 3D printing is vital and without proper supports it can cause your prints to fail pretty frequently. I love to use Tree supports which should be a type present in most modern slicers. Tree supports cut down cost and time when printing! I have my support threshold angle at 35% for PETG and have it to where supports will only generate on the build plate. This is because I don’t want supports forming on the model itself so then it doesn’t ruin things like where straps are meant to go within the model. [ATTACH=full]353871[/ATTACH]
Overall this is how much support I have for my prints because PETG is a little more temperamental on overhangs than PLA is.
As I 3D print parts I double check scaling and fit. I look at the model and reference images I gathered and double check if it looks like it properly fits. If it does great! If not reprinting is definitely something in my opinion you should consider. As for me it seems I did enough planning to actually get everything scaled almost perfectly!
