Falout 4 Power Armor, with Frame

[dbsamurai]

Hiya everyone. Noticed someone was kind enough to upload the power armor frame as a pep file, which means I can begin work on my insane plan.

Here's a rough image of the initial gameplan


So the gameplan is to build power armor...functioning (to an extent) power armor, in that it will be one size fits most and open and close to allow you to climb into it as an automated function.

In order to execute this, I'm planning on servo powering the hinges tied to a microcontroller in the chest with a button in the forearm and a button the back fusion core that'll open and close the armor. The ankle servos there (may be one...may be 2, I'll see how much torque I need) will be for opening the calves, not powering the armor ankles. I'm also planning on a stepper motor or some other dedicated motors for the shoulder openers because of the amount of weight they'll be carrying.

The pink parts I'm planning on being real Rubber, likely 3d printed simply because it's easier than making the necessary rubber molds to make bendable tubing. The blue markings will probably be purchased tubing from home depot or fry's or whatever, something flexible as cabling that I'll probably even use to store the wires for the servos and stuff.

In order to make it one size fits most (and this will be implemented last of all), the foot pads will feature telescoping foot pads to raise or lower people based on their height, the hand controlls will similarly telescope further into the forearms to allow shorter arms to reach them. Finally, as an absolute last resort to make sure it can fit people 6'5" to 5'2" tall, will make the chest adjustable, allowing it to be slid down over the abs further to accomodate shorter chests. Also this adjustment is planned to require tightening and loosening of bolts, so it won't be a "quick" transition, more of a fast fitting.

The goal for the overall function is to make it as in game accurate as I can (within reason, considering how the armor clips) so that will necessitate moving ankles with my feet above the actual feet. The gameplan for this is to make an ankle hinge, and attach springs or hydraulic extenders (like you'd find on your trunk) to the toes and ankles of the feet and the toes and ankles of the footclips, to allow you to bend the ankles but with a large enough resistance to prevent the weight of the armor itself from toppling the ankle (so that'll necessitate using springs/hydraulics with sufficient forces to withstand the torsional force of the armor itself...they'll no doubt need to be increased as I produce more of the armor and the weights turn out to be larger than I calculated)

The armor feet will probably be rubber soles and aluminum braces sandwiched around an aluminum sheet/plate to give them sufficient strength while still being light, and providing ample strenght to mount the springs to without bending.

As for the frame, the gameplan is to pull a Thorssolli (whom I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from for this build) and vacuum form everything for the most part, save for the hands themselves which will be 3d printed or laser cut mechanisms to allow me to grab things (because I learned from Gipsy how much it sucks not having hands...) so that'll be exciting...I'll likely have to fabricate my own vacuum former to accomodate some of the pieces too, consdiering their size.

It should take me a while to get the frame done, so hopefully that'll give everyone who's ripping files from the game more time, cause I'm hoping to get the over armor to be the X-01 (since it has the least amount of clipping and has a helmet that can most easily be modified to not clip into the back when it opens).

The overarmor will also be vacuum formed and then bolted onto the frame.

 

[hobbitdude13]

See, I'm printing out a Halo 4 MJOLNIR currently, but I've modeled it out so I've also moved to the Fallout 4 Power Armor.

I'm insane however and plan to 3D print the whole smash, and have begun refining the pep file into something with much more resolution:



I've got the whole frame to the point where it can be smoothed into what you see on the far right. I'm in the process of "chunking" it to fit my build volume.

 

[zapwizard]

Aggressive project. As Hobbitdude13 mentioned, the game models are much rougher than what you actually see in game, so you will have to re-model a lot of the design.

 

[CLOTHAR]

This is super ambitious, and I find that awesome!
I don't have much experience with Vac forming, but I wonder if the plastic would be strong enough to support all the weight as the frame. Other than that I think this is great, and look forward to seeing how it comes along.

Hobbitdude - Great work with the 3d modelling there. I wish I had more skill with Blender so I could do something similar!

 

[hobbitdude13]

Hobbitdude - Great work with the 3d modelling there. I wish I had more skill with Blender so I could do something similar!

Once I've got the entire power armor frame smoothed and chunked I will release everything publicly.

 

[CLOTHAR]

Once I've got the entire power armor frame smoothed and chunked I will release everything publicly.

Awesome! I look forward to that as well.

 

[dbsamurai]

I've got the whole frame to the point where it can be smoothed into what you see on the far right. I'm in the process of "chunking" it to fit my build volume.

Nice! I'm large enough and the intention grand enough to build it truescale already, so I don't really have to alter the files much myself, particularly not since I'm going to be using a nonstandard process to produce the vacuum formed parts.

Aggressive project. As Hobbitdude13 mentioned, the game models are much rougher than what you actually see in game, so you will have to re-model a lot of the design.

I doubt it. I'm going to be producing my vacuum form patterns out of MDF using a shop bot. It will rough out a general shape based on the obj files I have, but then I'll have to add onto that and build it up and smooth it out due to the limitations of the bot. So even with a rough model to start with I'm gonna be doing a lot of finishing work after the fact to actually develop the patterns themselves, the pep files at this point are more guidelines than true forms. They'll get me as close as they need to, and then I'll finish them by hand. Happily too, because of their durability, I'll be able to use them in pretty much any vacuum former than can fit them...even the terrifying crush monster that's at my workshop :wacko

This is super ambitious, and I find that awesome!
I don't have much experience with Vac forming, but I wonder if the plastic would be strong enough to support all the weight as the frame.

Well the proof of concept for me was Thorssoli's build which you can find here:
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=122015
He built an even grander design, a full squad of Space Marines at true scale, using vacuum forming (I believe he also used a thinner plastic than I intend to, at least for the frame) and as you can see it both looks gorgeous and is remarkably strong and light, which will be important for myself as well because the fundamental idea will be largely identical, just easier to get into.

At the moment I'm working on sectioning out the files in solid works while I wait for my workshop to re-open from christmas break. Not a lot of impressive visuals sadly, but fortunately the obj file I have for the frame itself is exploded, allowing me easy access to delete the parts I don't want to work on atm and tweak the others. Once I have everything sectioned into individual files, then comes using autodesk to slice them into .75 inch pieces so that the shop bot can cut them out, and add some guide pegs so that the individual slices can be aligned properly.

 

[CLOTHAR]

Thor does great work. Though I think he only vac formed the shell for his marines. I don't think he used a full internal frame. He had metal stilts, and fabric webbing to hold it all together. It will be great if the vac formed plastic is strong enough to work as a frame. I've never worked with it before.

 

[dbsamurai]

Thor does great work. Though I think he only vac formed the shell for his marines. I don't think he used a full internal frame. He had metal stilts, and fabric webbing to hold it all together.

Sorry, yea that's basically the same as my design. I'm gonna have aluminum based stilts with the Power Armor frame basically being a shell that's attached together at a lot of joint places, the only structure they'll actually be providing is from them all being attached together in one piece in lieu of webbing to allow me to step into and out of it instead of requiring 5 people to put it on. The plastic itself should be rigid enough to withstand any tension in that regard, the same way that Thor's chest piece could support the minute weight of the backpack...or so I hope. We'll find out once I get into production.

 

[hobbitdude13]

Nice! I'm large enough and the intention grand enough to build it truescale already, so I don't really have to alter the files much myself, particularly not since I'm going to be using a nonstandard process to produce the vacuum formed parts.

Oh, I'm building truescale also with 3D printing. ABS will be light enough to where I'm not terribly worried about load distribution. It'll be a lot of plastic but I'm confident it'll go well. Obviously load bearing parts will be reinforced with fiberglass and wood struts where necessary.

 

[CLOTHAR]

Samurai - Sounds like a good plan. I guess I misunderstood earlier. Any thoughts on when you will start forming? I'm excited to see how it turns out.

 

[dbsamurai]

Me too Clothar. I'm still partitioning everything atm in autodesk, and then I need to get the funds together to start buying mdf and getting it cut. End goal is to have the primary "open/close" functionality done by the end of may, so I have time, but the sooner I can get the parts formed obviously the more time I'll have to tinker with fit and correct problems.

 

[dbsamurai]

In the midst of trying to acquire supplies with no money I've been trying to slice up the file, but I'm running into problems with my computer lacking the memory to properly operate sadly. I keep trying to divide the model I have into subcomponents, but everything from Solid Works to Maya can't seem to figure out that it's a model and let me edit it. Any ideas?

 

[zapwizard]

Are you trying to cut up the in-game extracted model?

The game model is made from polygons, and most solid CAD software can't modify it, but they can often read it. I would expect Maya to be able to modify it since it is more game oriented. I used Solid Edge, it could view the model, but I had to re-make my whole Pip-Boy model from scratch.

 

[dbsamurai]

I'm using the exploded obj file that someone uploaded here. Solidworks can't understand OBJ direct, but I managed to get it as a solid body by converting to STL first.

Maya, similarly, has no problem opening it. Things go screwy for both of them, though, when my computer crashes when I try to edit any of the geometry to delete components and save them individually for easier slicing, or Maya which opens it and then makes the camera unmovable and waaaaaaaay of center so you can't see the model at all.

So it seems like the model's too complicated for my computer to handle, but I can't figure out how to simplify it without, you know, uploading it into a modelling program.

 

[Yo Soy Spider]

man you dont know how much ive been waiting for someone decided to make this

 

[dbsamurai]

I'm pretty eager myself

Having some more troubles, I had to call on my dad for help. He managed to get it open in Rhino I believe, but now I'm waiting on him to partition it up so I can get slicing.

 

[kamenkewl]

nice! i`ve started something similar, but mine is way less ambitious! i won`t be doing any motorized parts, so the frame will be very simplified, so i can put swap out what armor i put on it (any of the fallout ones, or other armor could be made to suit it!)
actually, i first started with this idea a while back, while planning to do cherno alpha from pacific rim, and i came across your build of that, which was really helpful. i`ve been planning and toying with this frame idea since then!

 

[dbsamurai]

nice! i`ve started something similar, but mine is way less ambitious! i won`t be doing any motorized parts, so the frame will be very simplified, so i can put swap out what armor i put on it

That's actually my plan as well, build the frame so that any of the fallout armors can be bolted to it.

Thanks to my dad I've got the files subdivided, which will make slicing them considerably easier. Now hopefully I can get some time in 123d make and get the slices I need ready.

 

[dbsamurai]

Man oh MAN has life been crazy. Months of dealing with chaos and mayhem, bedbugs, car failure, finding income sources, building two different spartans, trying to work out a new workshop, it's been crazy.

Problems have abounded on this project too, trying to work out a vacuum former to use, since the one I got access to atm is way too small for most of this stuff, how to build it, where to store it, it's all crazy.

Brings us to today, where I'm broke but have abundant free time to work on this. So, since I can't afford to buy anything atm, I figured I'd use my brain! Cause that **** is free. Also use a 3d printer I have free access to for reference materials since I have an old spool of abs and PLA:


So here's a rough idea of my foot base, where everything will attach to:


At the moment I'm debating keeping it game accurate with only a single ankle joint, or saying screw it and doubling up on the ankle joints for strength. The latter will add weight and rigidity, but I'm thinking I'll still have decent tilt balance from the rubber layers I'll be screwing to the bottom of the foot pad



As for where I'm getting my numbers from, I took the pep files I have of the frame, estimated their total surface area based on the number of sheets they covered (hence the .8, since they cover roughly 80% of a sheet on each one) and multiplied that by the expected end thickness of the material. With a 1/8th inch sheet I expect a thickness loss of about .03, with the 1/16th inch I expect a thickness loss of about .02. Both of these are based on my past experiences and the size of the parts in question, but they're rough estimates.

With this in mind it's looking like ABS is the way to go unquestionably. And PETG I do use will probably be in the helmet front, so that even after painting I can still see out of it in more places than just the eye holes (and depending on where the eyes sit, I may be able to make them light up like the headlamps they are while still seeing out of the rest of the face).

Also, while the 1/16th abs is considerably lighter, I'm concerned about its rigidity, particularly in the chest area. With this in mind I'm leaning more towards the 1/8th, even though it'll be almost twice the weight, just so that I can have a strong frame to secure the much lighter 1/16th in physical armor plates to.

Unfortunately I can't find any pep rips of the X-01 atm, so I'm stuck guestimating entirely on the weight that'll add, but conservatively I'm expecting a total material weight of about 70lbs. the steel stilts that will make up most of the legs will help hold the weight, and across 4 ankle joints that means, with my added weight, they'll have to support about 65lbs apiece, which should be within the realm of hardened bolts. I'm debating too if I want to spare the expense for bearings to decrease the friction and make the ankles move easier, but if I do it'll probably be skateboard bearings since those are designed to handle fat people rolling long distances.

Additionally, I don't think I want springs as much as I want hydraulics for this one due to the difference in loading behavior, so I'm looking into where to acquire something like these:

That can handle the expected torque from me leaning as I walk. The bitch there is finding something that will let me walk but also won't let the suit teeter over when I'm not in it, because as much as possible I'd like to not have to use manual locks to keep the suit upright when I'm out of it, cause that'll ruin the illusion of "open and step in" as it were.

Gameplan on the hands is to make them servo controlled, five 9g servos in each hand hooked up to controls in the forearm. This will allow me to make the forearm controls adjustable for shorter arms, in case others want to try and wear the armor. For that I'm thinking rocker switches like on a heat gun, up/off/down on each finger, with a rotator control to rotate the wrist clockwise and counter clockwise. The hand will likely have to be 3d printed for this to work, but happily I have the files already for that complete with gearing to make the wrist rotate.