My finished 3d-printed Master Chief armor!

[kaween]

The armor looks absolutly gobsmacking.
"Undersuit is a crysis nano suit morphsuit." Yep, having played Crisis 1 and 2 to death, I recognized that one instantly but I doubt all that many people would notice.
For me it was a bit like "hey what's Nomad doing in that Mjolnir armor" ?

The only thing that bothered me personally is the bodysuit is a bit too prominent with its lighter shades of grey, although maybe in real life it looks darker ?
And the "Morphsuit" tag on your butt. I wonder what some of these mfg'ers are thinking when designing otherwise perfect pieces of kit.

But this is nitpicking by an old git. I'll cry tears of joy if I ever can produce such a result. :thumbsup

This again confirms getting into 3D printing is the way for me too (currently building my 3D printer) and your info about what printer you used is very helpful. I was looking at the Velleman too, but I decided on a metal version of the I3 Prusa instead. Looking at the results you get from your K8200, I hope I didn't make the wrong decission.

 

[PerniciousDuke]

Wow. No idea how I missed that... Your Chief looks OUTSTANDING! O_O
Seirously 100% legit

But, I was wondering, how did you attach the pieces, especially leg armor so it won't fall/slip down?

In case Martorias doesn't respond, I wanted to point out that in a couple posts he/she talks about the way the cod piece is attached..

Magnets! The cod and butt pieces are just pulled off. I sew magnets to a wide elastic band that I have under the suit and used this chemical metal 2 component putty to attach magnets to the pieces.

belt with sewn on magnets. Neodymium magnets, bought a ton from eBay for cheap. Loctite repair putty to secure magnets on plastic piece. Belt goes under undersuit and it's seen!

View attachment 19863

Still doesn't explain the leg part like you mentioned, but you could apply the same theory, or run a strap down the side of your hip (attached to the belt) with more magnets on them.

Just thought I'd point out this under-the-suit magnet thing because I thought it was ingenious.. uncomfortable, possibly itchy, but ingenious.

 

[Thefabricator]

dude it looks amazing and the morphsuit you used was brilliant! such an easy solution to get all the details you'd want!

 

[Martorias]

The armor looks absolutly gobsmacking.
"Undersuit is a crysis nano suit morphsuit." Yep, having played Crisis 1 and 2 to death, I recognized that one instantly but I doubt all that many people would notice.
For me it was a bit like "hey what's Nomad doing in that Mjolnir armor" ?

The only thing that bothered me personally is the bodysuit is a bit too prominent with its lighter shades of grey, although maybe in real life it looks darker ?
And the "Morphsuit" tag on your butt. I wonder what some of these mfg'ers are thinking when designing otherwise perfect pieces of kit.

But this is nitpicking by an old git. I'll cry tears of joy if I ever can produce such a result. :thumbsup

This again confirms getting into 3D printing is the way for me too (currently building my 3D printer) and your info about what printer you used is very helpful. I was looking at the Velleman too, but I decided on a metal version of the I3 Prusa instead. Looking at the results you get from your K8200, I hope I didn't make the wrong decission.

Thanks! Yeah the morphsuit was the only decent alternative I could get my hands on. I'd like to make my own but I really couldn't find the time as I barely had time to finish the rest. It's a bit too bright I agree

The butt plate usually covers the logo but it slipped a little I believe.

I think the i3 will be an excellent printer to get started

In case Martorias doesn't respond, I wanted to point out that in a couple posts he/she talks about the way the cod piece is attached..

Still doesn't explain the leg part like you mentioned, but you could apply the same theory, or run a strap down the side of your hip (attached to the belt) with more magnets on them.

Just thought I'd point out this under-the-suit magnet thing because I thought it was ingenious.. uncomfortable, possibly itchy, but ingenious.

Yeah it's the same. I actually have several belts; One around my stomach for the cod piece, one around the waist/butt for the butt plate and to hold the thighs up. I have two more just below my knees to hold the shin part up.

The armor is pretty uncomfy but that's not because of the belts or anything, it's the fact that it's rock solid

 

[Jme]

Holy crap! Great job!


"I'm just a witness"

 

[Mannie SP397]

So this looks Amazing. But this leaves me with a lot of questions. If someone can entertain and feed my brain..

 

[kaween]

Total printing time is around 500h and it's about 13kg PLA plastic. (not counting bad prints and those of wrong scale..)

A couple of questions if you don't mind :

1) what was the reason for choosing PLA over ABS ? I've done some reading on the subject and have a limited level of experience being allowed to play with a friends' far more expensive Ultimaker, but other than Bio-degradability of PLA I was wondering if there's another reason for choosing it. As you were printing on your "now dead balcony" -euh, PLA shouldn't smell as bad as ABS in my limited experience- the semi-sweet stench of of PLA shouldn't have been the reason either. So what made you go with PLA ?

2) yeah, wrong sized printouts, my main concern and I guess that is inevitable. Any tips regarding how to avoid that the best ?

3) how much finishing work did you have on the parts in terms of sanding ect prior to painting ? Any possibility to see some "work in progress" pictures maybe ?
I did read the "sanding and sanding some more" part of your post, but are you talking days ? Hours ?
Also, what is the overall thickness you set the material-printing to ?


As for undersuits ... it's a 100% personal thing and many people will totally disagree with me on this one : please do not take this as an insult or even personal critisism.
I even nearly deleted this part of my posting because I didn't want to give the wrong impression but as long as you understand it's just "this idiots' opinion" I hope no harm will be done.
So here it goes.


Personally I strongly dislike most full-print undersuits because they try so hard at depicting physical stuff that is obviously totally fake like protection plates and what have you not.
In best case, they're hardly noticable. In worst case, they distract the attention from the phenomenal quality of the armor that was build -and that's about the worst thing anybody would wish for-.

For example, you could use a neutral black compression suit combined with a cross-bike armor on top with a segmented spine protection on your back instead of a printed undersuit.
This won't just look real, it WILL be real and tactile as it is a piece of real armor-. I use 3d hex-patterned sport pads on elbows and knees. No they're not canon. Yes they look real because -they are-.
And also important : they're dirt cheap.
A complete set like that can be scored under 50€ if you shop around on Ali/Banggood.

In this example, If I were a biker, I'm not sure I would trust the protective quality of these type of gear, but optically it does work, just like the paintball gloves like RAP4's, V-Tacs and what else more used by many cosplayers do keep up the illusion too.

So pure personally, I prefer a "not very canon but very real" piece of kit instead of a clearly-fake-flat-printed-detailed thing which to me breaks down the illusion which the rest of the armor so successfully tries to make. I'm not saying there are no good undersuits out there -of course there are- but unless you can make one yourself, the good ones all seem REALLY expensive, and I'm just saying that I haven't seen very many that truly do justice to rest of the armor many people are building and wearing.

PS : please don't kill me now.

 

[Martorias]

A couple of questions if you don't mind :

1) what was the reason for choosing PLA over ABS ? I've done some reading on the subject and have a limited level of experience being allowed to play with a friends' far more expensive Ultimaker, but other than Bio-degradability of PLA I was wondering if there's another reason for choosing it. As you were printing on your "now dead balcony" -euh, PLA shouldn't smell as bad as ABS in my limited experience- the semi-sweet stench of of PLA shouldn't have been the reason either. So what made you go with PLA ?

PLA barely smells anything so that's not the problem. Balcony was mostly used to be able to print 24/7 (can't sleep with the printer running). I went with PLA because my hotend (J-Head Mk V) doesn't do ABS, mainly. I have a e3d v6 hotend as well but it keeps clogging so I cba and got the J-head and kept going with PLA. Works fine for me

2) yeah, wrong sized printouts, my main concern and I guess that is inevitable. Any tips regarding how to avoid that the best ?

Not really, measure a lot and make sure you don't mess up the files lol. I mislabeled a folder and printed an entire shin in wrong scale so that's a waste.

3) how much finishing work did you have on the parts in terms of sanding ect prior to painting ? Any possibility to see some "work in progress" pictures maybe ?
I did read the "sanding and sanding some more" part of your post, but are you talking days ? Hours ?
Also, what is the overall thickness you set the material-printing to ?

I'd say it's more like days. First after printing it takes some time to remove support material and cleaning it up. Then I did some rough sanding before glueing and "welding" (melting). After that I did more sanding to get rid of the melted mess, and then put some filler and sanded that. Usually here I did a spray coat to see which parts needs most work. Then sand, fill, sand, spray filler, sand, and paint. I think this process (except the printing ofc) took the most time. Paiting everything was done in like a few days.

As for undersuits ... it's a 100% personal thing and many people will totally disagree with me on this one : please do not take this as an insult or even personal critisism.
I even nearly deleted this part of my posting because I didn't want to give the wrong impression but as long as you understand it's just "this idiots' opinion" I hope no harm will be done.
So here it goes.


Personally I strongly dislike most full-print undersuits because they try so hard at depicting physical stuff that is obviously totally fake like protection plates and what have you not.
In best case, they're hardly noticable. In worst case, they distract the attention from the phenomenal quality of the armor that was build -and that's about the worst thing anybody would wish for-.

For example, you could use a neutral black compression suit combined with a cross-bike armor on top with a segmented spine protection on your back instead of a printed undersuit.
This won't just look real, it WILL be real and tactile as it is a piece of real armor-. I use 3d hex-patterned sport pads on elbows and knees. No they're not canon. Yes they look real because -they are-.
And also important : they're dirt cheap.
A complete set like that can be scored under 50€ if you shop around on Ali/Banggood.

In this example, If I were a biker, I'm not sure I would trust the protective quality of these type of gear, but optically it does work, just like the paintball gloves like RAP4's, V-Tacs and what else more used by many cosplayers do keep up the illusion too.

So pure personally, I prefer a "not very canon but very real" piece of kit instead of a clearly-fake-flat-printed-detailed thing which to me breaks down the illusion which the rest of the armor so successfully tries to make. I'm not saying there are no good undersuits out there -of course there are- but unless you can make one yourself, the good ones all seem REALLY expensive, and I'm just saying that I haven't seen very many that truly do justice to rest of the armor many people are building and wearing.

PS : please don't kill me now.

I agree. I was looking at those exact protection armor things on ebay/ali but if I got those I'd like to get a lot more work done on the undersuit (I'd sew myself and add padding etc) but I didn't have time for that

I'll see if I can make another album with some more progress pics, they're spread out but I can maybe just put them in a imgur thing with no particular order.

 

[kaween]

PLA barely smells anything so that's not the problem....

Thanks, your answers explained a good deal of the questions I had. The extruder that comes with the I3 shouldn't have any issues with ABS but I didn't realise the Vellemans' extruder is a bit more picky. Thank you for getting that issue out of the way as I was wondering if there was some kind of technical choice in regards the suit itself.

May I ask again at what thickness you printed the material ? 2 mm ? 3 mm ?

 

[Martorias]

Thanks, your answers explained a good deal of the questions I had. The extruder that comes with the I3 shouldn't have any issues with ABS but I didn't realise the Vellemans' extruder is a bit more picky. Thank you for getting that issue out of the way as I was wondering if there was some kind of technical choice in regards the suit itself.

May I ask again at what thickness you printed the material ? 2 mm ? 3 mm ?

Oh the original hotend can do ABS but it broke down and I had to replace it, that's why I got the e3d first I'm happy printing only PLA though, works fine for what I'm doing.

Sorry I forgot to write that hehe, it's around 4mm and a little thicker where needed. I'll see about photos later tonight. Here's some pics from blender if that's of any interest http://imgur.com/a/k2Yti

 

[peterthethinker]

I swear by the E3D V6 for my friends machnes( mostly I3s and a TAZ .. they just work soooooo much better.

What do you think was the problem with yours? the PTFE tube is sometimes not the right size.


My first machine used a Ubis end and it was a nightmare!

that got swapped Realy fast to a E3D .

 

[Martorias]

I swear by the E3D V6 for my friends machnes( mostly I3s and a TAZ .. they just work soooooo much better.
What do you think was the problem with yours? the PTFE tube is sometimes not the right size.
My first machine used a Ubis end and it was a nightmare!
that got swapped Realy fast to a E3D .

I'm using a direct drive extruder so there's no PTFE tube. I'm not sure what was wrong really. I tried several filament, tried lubing the filament, tried different nozzles, put A LOT of cooling on it but it still got stuck after an hour or two. Since I switched to the j-head I've printed ~20kg pla with no issues at all.