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1Step 1
A few notes and tips concerning the use of servos in the build:
The servos listed are just what we used based on speed, power, durability and cost requirements. I would definitely recommend using metal gear servos with ball bearings. Nylon geared servos strip very easily, especially the micro and sub-micro variety.
Several of the servos will need to be changed to reverse rotation since the right and left side of various suit parts receive the same control signal. There are three options- use digital servos (easiest but most expensive), have the supplier change the rotation (Servocity.com does this) or change the rotation yourself by taking the servo apart and reversing the motor lead wires and the outer two pot wires. I changed them on the micro servos for the shoulder rockets and hip pods myself since I'm cheap. :)
We did elect to use high voltage digital servos in the helmet for the power they provide and the fact that their speed can be adjusted using a servo programmer. The servos for the hip pod sliding panels and gauntlet side panels also used digital servos since they needed to be powerful and swapping the wires on sub-micro servos can be really tricky. The other reason was because the standard sub-micro servos use nylon gears and we wanted to use metal gears for durability.
The servo position values in the code would probably need to be altered for another build since no two Iron Man suits are alike. The key when doing this is to make small changes in the values while paying attention to make sure the servos don't ever stall, as they can be easily damaged. If a servo does stall immediately turn off the power to the servos and make adjustments to the code.
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2Step 2
Notes about mechanics and suit construction:
Greg's suit is molded fiberglass. It is unlikely that a foam suit would be rigid enough to support the animatronic systems without some sort of reinforcement, especially in the shoulders as a large area has to be cut away.
It would also be best to have a finished assembled (but not painted) wearable suit before adding any animatronic system. It is important to know exactly how much room you have to work with and how it fits the suit performer before adding animatronics.
There are lots of different ways the mechanics of this suit could have been constructed. We tried to use readily available materials found in hobby shops and hardware stores whenever possible to save time and money. Items such as the shoulder rocket pods and hip pod hinge assemblies could easily be 3d printed if so desired.
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3Step 3
Notes about tools and materials used:
ProPoxy 20 is awesome stuff. When making the brass tube pivots for the shoulder rocket pods it was easiest to glue the brass tube to the servo casing with superglue ( I use Gorilla glue with a spray accelerator) and then mold some ProPoxy 20 around it- this is an easy way to make simple hinges that are very durable.
Adafruit Perma-Proto boards are really great; I highly recommend using them to mount transistors, servo connectors, regulators and resistors. Anything you can do to clean up the wiring in the suit is time and money well spent. If I was to do it over again I would design a custom PCB in order to clean up the wiring in the back torso.
As far as tools go, most all of the work was done with basic tools; a scroll saw to cut the plywood, soldering iron, wire cutters, pliers and a Dremel tool. A bit of fiberglass work was done in the helmet and for this I really like epoxy resin- I use West Systems epoxies. Epoxy resin doesn't smell and it's a lot tougher than polyester resin. The West Systems epoxy resin also has an incredibly long shelf life and it's super easy to mix if you use their metered pumps.
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