Cosmo's First Build - MkVb

[CosmoCornelius]

Alright, we’ve got more filament, and additionally we have two upgrades— I picked up a giant dehydrator for my filament, and I also picked up a flexible PEI print bed! Installed the bed last night, dried my new roll of filament overnight while I slept, and started printing a forearm today. Here’s hoping it comes out good!

 

[CosmoCornelius]

WELP- It's been quite an eventful week

The forearm print above failed about 28 hours in to a 3.5 day print, when the "Thermal Runaway Protection" kicked in. Thing is, I was pretty sure the hot end was not in any danger of an actual runaway.

And so, I had to start troubleshooting. I found this thread that led me down the rabbit hole. I did find dried thermal paste in the hole where the thermistor lived, but just cleaning it didn't rectify the problem, less than 3 hours into another test print and it failed again. Then I did PID autotuning on both the bed and the nozzle, numbers on the nozzle were kinda funky but fixed themselves through the autotune... so I thought. The next print failed after about 24 hours. Thankfully I had already ordered parts for my next attempt. I replaced the thermistor in the hot end, and then recalibrated PID, and that finally did the trick.

Now I've completed a somewhat shorter print than the forearm, I did my right shoulder piece. Still workingon getting settings dialed in, this one has less stringing than previous ones but still some overextrusion. We'll keep working on it!

 

[CosmoCornelius]

After a few more exciting troubleshooting maneuvers, we finally have a successful forearm print! I did a little test fit of the right arm, everything just kind of holding itself together through friction but it looks pretty good size-wise in my opinion. Interestingly the second half of the forearm print had a lot of stringing again... is it possible that when drying a large (2.5KG) roll of filament, the dehydration doesn't penetrate all the way through? Anywho, I'm on to printing the left arm!

 

[Lojak]

After a few more exciting troubleshooting maneuvers, we finally have a successful forearm print! I did a little test fit of the right arm, everything just kind of holding itself together through friction but it looks pretty good size-wise in my opinion. Interestingly the second half of the forearm print had a lot of stringing again... is it possible that when drying a large (2.5KG) roll of filament, the dehydration doesn't penetrate all the way through? Anywho, I'm on to printing the left arm!
View attachment 337815

Those are looking great. Good scale too. Did you have to adjust much from your Armorsmith mannequin?

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Those are looking great. Good scale too. Did you have to adjust much from your Armorsmith mannequin?

I didn't actually! I'm pretty happy with how the measurements I took translated into the mannequin actually. I have a fair bit of experience measuring myself from years in costume on stage so I think I got pretty lucky with an accurate virtual "me".

Mostly, I just spent time tinkering with the scale on individual pieces and moving them around until I could just barely see gaps when I rotated around-- like for example I was perplexed by the fact that my bicep fit at 95% but that my forearm seemed like it was still too small at 100%... using Armorsmith it looked like I needed to go all the way up to 110%?! I printed some "size rings" from the ends of the piece and confirmed I actually did need to go that high. Printing the forearm in full confirmed that, so it does seem like my avatar in Armorsmith is true to life for now.

I feel like it's going to be harder once I get to printing the chest, because obviously there's going to be some space inside it unless I print it REALLY small, just because the chest sticks out a bit. So I think I will lean on what I can see in Armorsmith and go with something around 95% for the chest and see how it feels. I'll try to see what kinds of edges I can print to test size, maybe the neck area?

I did get my left arm somewhat finished, so I wanted to see what that looked like together. The Security shoulder I'm using on the left side friction fit with my left bicep PERFECTLY which I'm super happy about. I borrowed the forearm piece I already printed, I'm waiting for another roll of filament so I can print the second one. Also ripped the silicon sock on my hot end while cleaning it last night, so I have a few more of those arriving tomorrow so I can keep printing. At this rate I may get all the pieces printed before the end of the year? I know that might seem slow in comparison to some people's builds, but I have been so busy at work that I feel like I'm keeping a good pace.

 

[JTF4]

Just came across your thread today! Your scaling is looking great! I can't wait to see how the rest of your armor goes!

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Just came across your thread today! Your scaling is looking great! I can't wait to see how the rest of your armor goes!

Thanks! I have a few big spools of filament coming so that I can hopefully breeze through getting the legs and chest done, as long as no other big problems pop up.

 

[Lojak]

I didn't actually! I'm pretty happy with how the measurements I took translated into the mannequin actually. I have a fair bit of experience measuring myself from years in costume on stage so I think I got pretty lucky with an accurate virtual "me".

Mostly, I just spent time tinkering with the scale on individual pieces and moving them around until I could just barely see gaps when I rotated around-- like for example I was perplexed by the fact that my bicep fit at 95% but that my forearm seemed like it was still too small at 100%... using Armorsmith it looked like I needed to go all the way up to 110%?! I printed some "size rings" from the ends of the piece and confirmed I actually did need to go that high. Printing the forearm in full confirmed that, so it does seem like my avatar in Armorsmith is true to life for now.

I feel like it's going to be harder once I get to printing the chest, because obviously there's going to be some space inside it unless I print it REALLY small, just because the chest sticks out a bit. So I think I will lean on what I can see in Armorsmith and go with something around 95% for the chest and see how it feels. I'll try to see what kinds of edges I can print to test size, maybe the neck area?

I did get my left arm somewhat finished, so I wanted to see what that looked like together. The Security shoulder I'm using on the left side friction fit with my left bicep PERFECTLY which I'm super happy about. I borrowed the forearm piece I already printed, I'm waiting for another roll of filament so I can print the second one. Also ripped the silicon sock on my hot end while cleaning it last night, so I have a few more of those arriving tomorrow so I can keep printing. At this rate I may get all the pieces printed before the end of the year? I know that might seem slow in comparison to some people's builds, but I have been so busy at work that I feel like I'm keeping a good pace.
View attachment 338497

For the chest, remember you can bulk out the space with your under suit, and hide the gaps with a gasket. Id scale to the silhouette you want then work back and forth on scale tweaks and how you will build your under suit.

 

[CosmoCornelius]

For the chest, remember you can bulk out the space with your under suit, and hide the gaps with a gasket. Id scale to the silhouette you want then work back and forth on scale tweaks and how you will build your under suit.

That is a great point, I'll definitely do that. Do people normally just make a gasket from foam? I'll have to look for some relevant build logs on here at some point.

 

[Lojak]

Check out Kitkatgoose's work. It's a foam build but all of it still can apply to a print build.

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Check out Kitkatgoose's work. It's a foam build but all of it still can apply to a print build.

WHOA that is cool. I'm going to give this a thorough read and see if I think I can integrate it. Thanks so much! Foam work is really intimidating to me, but maybe having it not be the "main" component of the suit will help.

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Progress check-in! I had been getting "decent" quality with my continued prints, but I was wondering if there was something additional that needed my attention because I was starting to get lines in my prints where it seemed the nozzle kind of... skipped? Long story short, I had known for some time that I was going to need to replace my hot end and bowden tube, since I have been exclusively printing in PETG and I heard that the higher temps may necessitate the capricorn tubing and all metal hot end. I figured I could do with a nozzle upgrade as well, so I went ahead and picked up a copper-plated steel nozzle for some non-stick as a bonus. I installed those three parts over the holiday weekend and did a quick test print, which went so well I decided to dive in to a longer one. Six and a half days later, I had what I feel is a really good quality thigh piece! Printed at 95% scale after a sizing ring, and it fits QUITE well. The 2.5kg spool I have should have enough to print the other thigh as well (I weighed the remaining and compared to my sliced file) so I've started that one, and it'll be done in another six days.

 

[Lojak]

Progress check-in! I had been getting "decent" quality with my continued prints, but I was wondering if there was something additional that needed my attention because I was starting to get lines in my prints where it seemed the nozzle kind of... skipped? Long story short, I had known for some time that I was going to need to replace my hot end and bowden tube, since I have been exclusively printing in PETG and I heard that the higher temps may necessitate the capricorn tubing and all metal hot end. I figured I could do with a nozzle upgrade as well, so I went ahead and picked up a copper-plated steel nozzle for some non-stick as a bonus. I installed those three parts over the holiday weekend and did a quick test print, which went so well I decided to dive in to a longer one. Six and a half days later, I had what I feel is a really good quality thigh piece! Printed at 95% scale after a sizing ring, and it fits QUITE well. The 2.5kg spool I have should have enough to print the other thigh as well (I weighed the remaining and compared to my sliced file) so I've started that one, and it'll be done in another six days.

Looks sharp. How the ability to do a high knee?

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Thanks! So far I can, even bringing my thigh further than parallel to the ground. Feeling around behind, I'm not sure if I'll retain quite this level of flexibility once I have the calf on, but I'm fairly certain I'll be able to move pretty well still. Here's hoping!

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Quick update! Had a weird spaghetti error on an 85% finished print for the other thigh, but I was too busy at work in December to troubleshoot! Managed to get some time off after the holidays and ran some tests, I think it might have been a temp issue (garage was super cold!) so I moved the printer to a warmer spot, recalibrated and leveled, and successfully printed the job. So now I have both thighs! Moving on to calves.

In more hilarious news, my wife thoughtfully got me a mannequin that's somehow almost exactly my size!? I've named him Lopez and I'll be using him for both modeling this set but also for helping with creation and fitting of the harness for all the pieces. I'll try to get a good pic to share soon.

 

[JTF4]

Nice!!! I’d love to see some pictures of how the thighs turned out!

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Ask and ye shall receive-- plus a bonus pic of Lopez in my office lol

 

[JTF4]

Looking good!

One day Lopez will be wearing a full set of armor and you’ll unlock a new sleep paralysis demon one night.

 

[Lojak]

Hey this looks great! I just finished up the base for of my Mark Vb thighs recently too. I'm curious how it feels to have plastic for the inner thigh area versus eva. Feel like you are getting enough flexibility out of them?

Also, memorize where you keep Lopez in the house. Because there will be night where your wife wakes you to check on a noise and you will not be thinking about your Lopez. Next thing you know, you're having a heart attack from an adrenaline rush and your mannequin is in pieces. The only good thing that will come of that, is you will know you have the instincts to fight off a home invader.

 

[CosmoCornelius]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm not 100% sure yet if going all-plastic will work long term. The good news is the scaling is just about perfect, but without a harnessing solution I still had to "flex" my leg muscles to keep them from falling over my knees so it was hard to get a read on how difficult walking will be. I might end up a little bit cowboy, but it also may just be something where they rub and I just deal with it. I'll have to see if I can duct tape them in place once I get the calves done and see how it feels to stand up straight. Are you doing foamcrafted inserts for the thigh gaskets? I've just never done foam ANYthing so I was hesitant.

And yes, even though Lopez stays in my office here at the house he's already caused one or two yelps No attacks yet though!