Making my first armor

[MrBones]

Small question for helmets how do you guys cut a print time down but at the same time have good quality? because I am printing a helmet in 3 pieces but the back is tough and uses a lot of filament.

That's a good question lol
I had to cut my helmet into 7 pieces to compensate for print time cut down. I originally had mine in 3 pieces and my print time was insane, like a week worth of print time. When I broke it up further it lowered it to 2 and a half days roughly and also made support easier / allowing me to adjust the back weight vs front weight for filiment.

I'm not sure if my way is correct but it worked for me

 

[SgtSaint]

Small question for helmets how do you guys cut a print time down but at the same time have good quality? because I am printing a helmet in 3 pieces but the back is tough and uses a lot of filament.

Cut the time but keep the quality? - I don't even try. I don't give a hoot how long the robot takes if it increases the quality and reduces my labor.

> Also silk pla often requires a slower print speed.
PLA is bad enough for armor but silk is freaking brittle. There's no way I'd even bother to do armor in silk. Not to mention there's no point using more expensive material because of its silk appearance when you're going to sand and paint anyway.

 

[SgtSaint]

My regular 'new armorer' post:

Helmet probably should be last, not first. Yeah yeah, everyone wants a helmet to drool over. But it's the thing everyone stares at so you want to do it AFTER you've developed a process, techniques and skills.
Personally I always recommend starting at the feet & hands then working up & in to the body.
• You're going to weather and distress the boots more than anything else... and they get looked at with the least critical eye.
• Then shins which have to ride on the boots.
• Then thighs since you have to avoid joint conflict so you can sit etc.
• See how this goes? Up from the boots, and inward from the hands to forearms to biceps to shoulders.
• By the time you get to the chest and helmet; the parts at eye level that everyone stares at, looks at first, is right there in your face in every photo - you can make them look stellar.
And if you start at the boots you're looking at parts that are only a day or two per part not 6 days per part. So you can hone your scaling skills.

If you've never done an armor build before you might want your first armor to be one without the really tight tolerances of a Spartan or Ironman. I confess I made about 3 Spartan armors to get my first one right. It was very Goldilocks of "This is too big, this is too small, this is just right" with every part. If I had known then what I learned through the process I would have made a Mandalorian (least actual armor) then an ODST then Spartan and actually gotten 2-3 good wearable costumes instead of a lot of waste. I mean, if you're going to print 3 costumes either way, might well have 3 costumes- instead of 1 + a pile of wrong-sized prints, right?

If you are new to 3d printing or considering buying your first 3d printer just so you can make an armor:
3d printers have come a long way since I started with them in 2009. But they still aren't fully plug-n-play like a department store inkjet: But some of the newest & smallest ones are getting there. There's a lot more to 3d printing than just hitting print: Like knowing your different materials and when to use them. Or knowing when more walls and less infil, or more infil and less walls is the right choice. You should expect there to be a learning curve and at $20/spool that curve comes with a cost. I'm just saying walk into 3d printing with your eyes open.
"What's your printer?" thread on the 405th forum:
What's Your Printer?
I wish I knew this about printers before buying discussion:
"I wish I knew" Tips When Starting to 3d Print
°
Jumping right to armor is really not the best way to go when beginning 3d printing. You really want to work up to something this big and specialized. Work up to things so big that a 3% goof can mean added costs, joints that lock up and you can't bend your elbow etc. Little easy things first… Things with no supports to start. Move up to props like pistols. And keep moving upward over time.
• A few settings differences can be the difference between a part too weak to be used and printing your armor so heavy it's exhausting to wear. The difference between a $10 part and a $40 part adds up to a significant difference over an entire armor.

If it's your first printer taking a hybrid approach can actually save money. Get the small bed printer for home use and see if you even like doing this. Large 500mm machines aren't cheap and take up space and fails are proportionately expensive. If you love doing it and can justify the big printer as your second or third machine, go for it. But if you want to make the smaller things at home and outsource the big stuff to a print farm like www.starbase3d.com (mine for transparency) the extra-large printers mean being able to have big armor pieces like legs/chest/back done in single-prints instead of several seams to be glued and blended into invisibility.

 

[combustingSM]

Cut the time but keep the quality? - I don't even try. I don't give a hoot how long the robot takes if it increases the quality and reduces my labor.

> Also silk pla often requires a slower print speed.
PLA is bad enough for armor but silk is freaking brittle. There's no way I'd even bother to do armor in silk. Not to mention there's no point using more expensive material because of its silk appearance when you're going to sand and paint anyway.

Okay so ABS might be my way to go or petg?

 

[combustingSM]

Orientation plays a big role in that. I try and cut my pieces such that I reduce the amount of support material needed. Aside from that, I use the same, or similar setting that I use everywhere else. 3-5 walls, 5-10% infill, with a 0.2 layer height. If you're new to 3d printing, I'd recommend trying some test prints to see how fast you can print before it starts losing quality. Also, if you have a "bed slinger" type printer, I'd also recommend watching some of CHEP's videos on youtube for printer profiles.

Also silk pla often requires a slower print speed. If you can, I'd recommend pla+ or petg.

Petg might be the way to go