3d Printing a Mark VI Iron Man

[Samohtep]

Thanks, I'm dying to get my hands on the rest of the suit.

I'm looking for a source for the EL sheet material, but most of the links take me to manufacturer sites or it's sold out, any idea if any specialty stores carry it? While impossible for everything, I try to buy as I can locally. If not, is there a reliable source for the sheet material that I can cut to shape?

 

[DragginBowtie]

eBay is always a goo source of hard to come by things. It isn't local but it may be the easiest source.

 

[Samohtep]

So looking up the EL material on eBay and searching around the forum, I'm wondering which do I need to get, EL Panel or EL Tape? I know the panel is a larger sheet that can be cut to shape/size. Are the tape strips the same? I'm specifically talking about the Glowhut stuff, that I see all over eBay.

 

[darkside501st]

EL is not that bright and the transformer needed to power it is not quiet. If you have it in your helmet you will hear it buzzing/humming all the time. I would suggest LEDs instead. Check out this thread:

http://www.therpf.com/f24/ironman-led-eyes-white-red-blue-lights-99-movie-accurate-130219/

or this one:

http://www.therpf.com/f24/iron-man-helmets-real-poke-eye-111787/

They should give you a good idea of what to do.

 

[Samohtep]

Cool, thanks! I had seen the first one, but not the second.

 

[Samohtep]

Spent the evening building the chest reactor, realized that I've never soldered anything before. I know I need to add resistors, but I'm not sure where, how many, etc. Does anyone know of any tips/tricks?

 

[Kevin Gossett]

Google "led calculator"

It will tell you what type of resistor, how many, and give a diagram on how to set the circuit up. Watch a couple videos on YouTube as well

 

[darkside501st]

Yeah, it is pretty easy stuff once you start looking at it.

 

[darkside501st]

oops sorry for the double post.

 

[DragginBowtie]

Hmm, never realized it was that easy. This is definitely useful info for my build. Thanks for the advice Kevin.

 

[Samohtep]

Great, thanks for that! It's really helpful. I cobbled together a few tap lights from the dollar store to test my soldering.

 

[Samohtep]

I've laid out the LEDs for the chest piece, hope to start soldering them during lunch. The red lines are the anodes, blue are cathode. I've made a diagram of how I think it'll work, I've also got a button that will attach between the battery and blue line, not sure how it'll work

 

[Samohtep]

Well, I'll have to try something else, the solder melted the plastic dome the LEDs were sitting on.

 

[AMP]

Awesome work so far!

 

[Samohtep]

So after a few hours of trial and error, here's the result. I credit watching ironman while working. The pieces aren't fully together yet, as I need a better diffuser, I currently have two paper discs in place, but I don't like how grainy they look. I have a sheet of white translucent plexi, but it dims it quite a bit.

 

[Royal Dump]

I think you may have made the helmet too big.. It's supposed to be really snug against your face. But other than I am super jelly of you!

 

[Samohtep]

Side to side and around the neck, it's very snug, to the point that I have to do a lot of contorting and wiggling to get in it and also every time one ear ends up folded forward and the raw material is a bit like sandpaper. Also, as is, the faceplate hinges are pressing lightly against my temples and keep grabbing onto tufts of hair.

So far wearing it has been a bit painful. . Once I have the eye lights in, I'm going to line the helmet with felt to absorb some of the abuse.

But that said, the padding is mostly to bring my eyes closer to the slits, so I can see better.

I had seen somewhere, someone created a helmet where the lowest ring and ear hockey pucks came off and you put it on that way. If I could start this process over, I might have tried that.

When I eventually get more pieces, I guess we'll see how the rest of the scaling went.

 

[Samohtep]

Also, does anyone know how to remove solder from a board? I want to try to use one of my failed experiment boards again, but probably should clean it first.

 

[darkside501st]

Yeah, go get a desoldering braid. You put it on the solder and then put your iron on the braid and when it heats up it will absorb all the solder into the braid. A little flux helps too.

 

[Samohtep]

Picked up the braid and found that really helpful, thanks for that. I've spent a bit if time practicing soldering, and rebuilt the reactor light, much bigger.

One thing that concerns me a bit is that when they are on for a few minutes, the batteries (3 AAA) get really hot. Do I need more/larger resistors? Is there a downside to too large a resistor? I pulled the resistors out of the same tap lights as the LEDs, 3 LEDs to 1 resistors in the light, I think that I have 4-5 per resistor.