Iron Man Foam/Sintra MK46 Costume Modifications

Yep, it's not a build because hey - I didn't build it! Rather, it was built by Superhero Forge for a costume contest apparently. When they were done with it they put it up on their Facebook page for sale and I decided to buy it! After putting together most of the Batman vs. Superman: DOJ armor, I realized that I'm not really wanting to build this costume from scratch out of EVA foam. That's a lot of work!

Anyway, after the suit finally did arrive - following some shipping issues with Superhero Forge - I immediately found that it is going to need a LOT of modifications, hence the title of this post.

So this is a MK46 (built as MK47 but I had them paint it) suit from Captain America Civil War. It is made of EVA foam, except for the chest and back, which are made of sintra. It came with wiring for lights across the suit, arc reactor LEDs for the chest, and remote-controlled back flaps. Pretty cool! Unfortunately when it arrived, the back was all kinds of broken around those back flaps, and that had to be fixed:




I then noticed that the wiring for those back flaps was ... I guess unconventional. Then again, I don't know much about electronics and it all did work as advertised! But I did know that I didn't want to stick this battery on my back, and I wasn't sure how I would carry around a remote control anyway:




So I took that all out. I ended up replacing it (and all the other LEDs and wiring) with stuff I got from Sparkfun.com. I found this ecosystem called Sparkfun Spectacle, which is basically for people who want some effects but don't want to take electronics as a hobby! I'm definitely no sandbagger so there is no way I could do any of that stuff. The easy way is the way for me!

I ended up getting a bunch of extra wiring, some servos, an LED strip, the director board, light board, button board, motion board, audio board, a couple powered speakers, and some other stuff. Even just some battery boxes with switches in case none of this worked!


After a couple weeks working on this all, including teaching myself how to solder and cutting up the LED strip, I could add the LEDs throughout the suit. That took a good amount of time, wires, and JST or JST-SM connectors, but it looks great. I also ended up making little foam hexagons with a milk carton jug as diffusers all throughout the suit for the little light-holes on the MK46, which I think is an improvement until I get a 3D-printed version.

Old:


New:


Overall:


So far, I have some really cool functionality for the suit. I figured out how to control those back servos (and replaced a couple of them), figured out how to easily separate and solder wire to LED pixels, and wired up an LED disc which was difficult but is a perfect arc reactor after making sure it's behind a frosted "window" and you're protected from the heat it generates. I've also grabbed some sounds off of a post here on the RPF which I'm trying to make work, but for now I just have some good progress.

Hopefully this vid works to show that off:

Next up I'll be ensuring that I can light ALL lights on the suit at once and control the back flaps as expected while suited up. I need to find or make an undersuit, as well as gap fillers - I'm thinking of doing these out of leather or vinyl strips kind of like a Kylo Ren neck seal. I also have to make the hands and fingers, as the ones that came with the suit are really not great looking - but I think I'm going to either 3D print or get them 3D printed (if I get a 3D printer, of course).

Anyway, a good way to go but let me know what you think and/or if you have comments and suggestions! Thanks for reading!

Awesome job, looking forward to all you do!

So last night I took some time to connect the front and back pieces together and have the systems interconnect. Things like seeing if I could make the lights change color when the flaps go up, things like that. And it did work! I need to thing of some different things I can have the suit do now.

I am also trying to figure out if I want to add any button-initiated actions at all. I'm not really sure on that ... maybe Lift/close the visor? Maybe, but I already have a magnetic sensor in the helmet for that so not sure it's necessary. What else should the suit do other than light up, open flaps, and make a cool sound once in awhile?

Also ran into an issue with this Sparkfun Spectacle Light Board. Actually, this is the second Board I've had this happen to - the micro USB port just came right off when I gently tugged to get the cord out!



Really not great. What that means is that I can't power the lights independently on that board, so I'm at risk of running all the power from one battery that's controlling the whole system. Not great. Sparkfun Support hasn't been responsive at all on the issue, so not really happy with them either. I already have another open issue with them because I can't turn on and then turn off the lights unless I unplug them, because the code in their configuration utility is wrong. So at this point, not entirely sure I would recommend their Spectacle system. I guess we'll see.



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Last couple days have been kind of a pain! I'm getting a bit upset at this Sparkfun Spectacle system and I'll tell you why:

1. I've had the micro USB port come off of 2/3 of the light boards. Arrrgh.

2. Latch on / latch off doesn't work. This is the functionality that should turn things on/off like a light switch. Doesn't work, Support doesn't know what the issue is.

3. I bought 3 portable battery packs from Sparkfun, the ones that they sell with any of the Spectacle kits. What is really NOT awesome about them is that they don't stay on if there is a tiny bit of power draw - which means they don't work if they're hooked up to the individual Motion board for instance, the one that drives the servos. Great. Great.

Anyway, I added wiring for lights under the back flaps tonight. Took forever and I wired one of them backwards at first by accident, but all good now! Check it out if you'd like - its bright!


Oh and I also was testing this with a button rather than the inertia board that senses orientation. The button is FAR more reliable ... and that other board seemed to think that it was one way when it was another, etc etc. I am going to just have to rely on the button(s) instead I think!

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Well, I've kind of slowed down on this build for the moment. I think I pretty much have all the wiring in place for the body, chest, and back flaps. The only thing I need to figure out is where/how I want to mount the buttons that actuate everything. I also need to figure out what to do in the helmet, as currently its actuated with a magnetic sensor right in the helmet. Probably should move that but that means I'd have to have a connection going from the helmet to somewhere else - not great.

In the time that I've been slacking on this build, I got a 3D printer and have been learning and trying out a few things, as well as upgrading/modifying. The plan is to add to this current build while I ramp up my skill, then 3D print a whole suit.

My first print was a hexagon with a rectangle in it - the purpose is to upgrade the light holes on the MK46 suit:



I still need to go through and add all of those! It's not too bad, but there are 22 of them! My wife also got me the MK46 files from MaxCrft, which will help with the rest.

Tonight, after a good amount of messing with this printer, I printed my first whole Iron Man finger. The middle one, of course! Looks pretty good I think and is WAY better than I could ever ever ever do in foam:



One thing I'm unsure about though is how in the world would I get any sort of glove or anything under these? I don't think I could have them any bigger as my fingers would be on top of each other if they're any bigger, but there is almost no room underneath. What do people use for gloves/covering under these finger armor pieces?

Next I'm going to print the rest of the fingers, palm, back, and cover (MK46). Wish me luck!


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