Introduction: Mark 85 Iron Man Suit

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About: 13 year old engineer

From my love of Iron Man, I decided I wanted to 3D print an Iron Man suit. This project took 5 months of printing, painting, and adding electronics. This project was so enjoyable for me that I am now building another one.

Supplies

Here are the list of supplies you will need to get to make the suit:

  1. Adventurer 5M 3D Printer - $259
  2. Elegoo PLA Filament (Around 14 Spools) - $200
  3. Crashworks ALISHA MKE Helmet Motorization board - $40
  4. Flexible Helmet Eye Lights - $19
  5. 2 MG90s Servo Motors - $8
  6. 16x16 Neopixel Matrix - $15
  7. M3 Screw Kit - $8
  8. Limit Switch Pack - $6
  9. Soldering Iron - $10
  10. Nylon Strap and Buckle Pack - $10
  11. Hot Glue Gun - $10
  12. 3D Model From CGTrader - $35
  13. Pliers (They come with the 3D Printer)
  14. Spray paint - about $100

Total Price With Printer: $720

Total Price Without Printer: $461

Step 1: Prepare 3D Files

  1. Download Orca Slicer, and then open it up
  2. Select the printer in the setup menu (Adventurer 5M in my case)
  3. Import the files one by one. You can access these files through CGTrader after you buy them.
  4. Download the helmet motorization kit files from this page. Also import and export these files.
  5. Each time you import a file, scale it down to the size that will fit your body (The original files are made for a 5'11 Male)
  6. After scaling it to your size, setup the supports and other settings, and then export the GCode

Step 2: Printing

Now that you have the Gcode files, here are the next steps:

  1. Open Polar3D, and connect your account to your printer in the settings menu on the printer screen.
  2. Select your printer on the polar3d website once connected
  3. Upload your file, and click print
  4. Do this for every model until the whole suit and the helmet motorization kit is printed.

Step 3: Paint

Congratulations! The suit is now printed! But before we move on to electronics and wearability, we must paint it.

  1. Pick out your three spray paint colors (I chose the ones on the real suit)
  2. Mask parts of the suit off with masking tape as you paint one color at a time.
  3. After all parts are painted, let them sit for about 24 Hours, and then apply 2 layers of clear coat spray paint to achieve a gloss finish.

Paint is now done!

Step 4: Wearability

The photo shows the suit while I was adding wearability. Dont mind the chest light as we will cover that later.

  1. Using the straps, buckles, and hot glue, figure out a simple system to strap the pieces together, and to you. (Here is a good tutorial for this)

I am not good at explaining the straps, but I learned from this video, which makes it very easy to learn!

Step 5: Electronics

This is going to be the hardest, and most frustrating part, but it will all be worth it!

  1. Follow the PDF attached to the helmet motorization kit files to get step by step instructions on helmet motorization.
  2. Plug the Light up eyes into the port on the board to have them light up when the helmet is closed.
  3. Hot glue the eyes on the inside of the helmet, with the rough side of them facing inward.
  4. hot glue the NeoPixel Matrix to the chest hole on the suit.
  5. Plug the NeoPixel Matrix into the NeoPixel slot on the board.
  6. Solder the limit switch to the input wires that come with the board, on the NO or Normally Open spot of the limit switch.

Step 6: Completion!

Congratulations! You are now Iron Man!

Show off the suit to your friends, or wear it for Halloween like I did!

Hope you enjoy.