Electronics Oh God, What have I gotten myself into?

Hi everybody in that infinite void out there known as TEH INTERWEBZ!

Ryan here, and I'm gonna tell you right now, this project has gotten a lot of flak from my reasonability senses in the thirteen or so minutes between me thinking of it, and this post.

I want to build a real Iron Man, jets and all (except for the arc reactor; DUH)
But, that means, since most of the tech either doesn't exist, to large, or too expensive. So that means PCBs, controls, power, those little rockets, and code...Oh god, code! I'm pretty sure that i'll need help with that! So, for the first bit of this project, i'll be working on scavenging parts and pieces, and prototyping those rockets.

So i'll be cataloging that on here, and if you would like to help (i probably will desperately need help..especially with code.) please, jump on the bandwagon!

Update later!

By the way, the prefix is most likely wrong for the fact that I don't know how to classify it.

 

You'd need some long lasting rockets, something not foil and something tough...

Joints can be made like hinges, but it's going to be VERY time consuming to make every joint.

Or just cheat and make it stiffer than a stripper pole.

 

Your going to kill yourself if you try and get airborne using rockets on your feet...

 

Well, the rockets are the last of my worries... I'm more concerned about the actual suit.

 

You say that like it's a bad thing...
Sounds like fun to me. Do you have a little brother you can use, Ryan?

 

Certainly the most ambitious project I've come across in a long time.
You have my interest. That's for sure.

Will you be basing the jets on some of the current 'jetpack' designs using concentrated Peroxide?

A personal helicopter design would be more practical IMO. Something like the GEN H-4 perhaps.

Any rocket designs would be limited to ~1min, the world record for sustained flight with jetpack style propulsion is -iirc- only like 45seconds and about 1500m.

Keep us informed.

 

You just made my day.

I'd study how custom medical braces are made, and work from there.

PopSci had a good article about exoskeletons about 6 months ago.

 

Actually funny Kayin mentioned that.

One of the things my father's company makes is Carbon Fiber leg and arm braces... they are pretty much exoskeleton like. LINK. Starting with medical gear like this may be an easy way to build your base structure. then fill in the gaps with some kind of geotextile.

I think this is the only way your going to make something light enough to get off the ground with out a mind blowing budget.

 

Here's an idea Kayin and I were sort-of tossing around:

-Start by wearing elastic joint braces. Or nanotech fiber if you can afford it. There are nano technologies geared towards increasing muscle mass, I have a close friend studying such textiles for his thesis.
-From there kit yourself out with a full selection of the latest high tech offerings in elbow, knee, ankle, wrist, etc braces like the one i linked above.
-Build yourself a pelvic and neck section.
-Find something for your torso.
-Find a helmet.
-Add some gass cylinders or actuators to the 'exoskeleton' you've now assembled. These will give you additional force for liftoff, and the gas cylinders will make landing softer. (A factor that's consistently proven incredibly difficult to pull off w/o injury for the military)
Now you have an exoskeleton that needs very little custom fabrication and even less computer control.

Onto the armor:
-Research some of the textiles and polymers out there. There is a company that makes a product called D3O (dee-three-oh) and it's an intelligent polymer that reacts to shock by hardening. If you couple this with a layer of the existing technology of projectile resistant aramid fibers... well... you'd have a pretty hard-core 'defense layer'. The intelligent shock reactive material has added benefits if you really intend to get this thing airborne.
-Fill all the gaps with a combination of the materials above and some of the other crazy stuff out there. (Bruce Mau has an art exhibit called Massive Change - he's already done all the research on the latest textiles, plastics, polymers, etc for you... I'd really suggest his book outlining the massive exhibit)

Flight:
-IMO your best bet is a concentrated peroxide jetpack. This wont give you 'flight' but you will get away with 45sec jumps... and 1500m leaps are nothing to complain about IMO.
-The best option for sustained flight is a helicopter based design - the most stable and it's the direction the military is going.
-I know of another interesting design you'll probally be interested in: Yves Rossey's "Human Plane" experiment... he's been working on it for a LONG time and it looks like it's starting to show promise. He's built collapsible wings -complete with jet turbines- that can be deployed by skydiving for what I'm sure is an incredible ride. LINK

Check out the stuff going on with DARPA too... they're almost there already

I don't know if any of this helps at all mate, I'm just thinking outloud.

-Jesse

{edit} By the way... you're a real son of gun... now I want to build a combat suit; badly {/edit}

 

What do you plan on using as a building material for the general construction of the suit?

 

I always imagined an armoured exesceleton would be composed of two suits; the armour on the outside and then a lighter suit which "floats inside it". Potentiometers/ piezo strain sensors/whatever on the inner suit measure where and how it's bending (i.e. how you're moving), then the powered armour recreates the shape with actuators/hydraulics/servos/whatever. Obviously you'll need some gyros/accelerometers and a decent onboard computer system to adjust the exoskeleton's movements based on its different center of gravity and such.

 

Use Titanium or some other fancy material!

And BTW I can be your crash test dummy! (not kidding)

 

Carbon fibre exo skeleton makes the most sense, even a fully qualified industrial design with years of experience would take a few months to design a basic power armour suit.

to keep the limbs as light and slim as possible i would use a neoprene suit with ancho points to attach a light weight cable system which can connect to a linear control sensor else where in the suit, like on the back of the sholders or something. mechanical power can be transmitted the same way but via the exo-skeleton.

Adding motors, or linear actuators to the suit that had any real power would result in a suit looking more like Iron Monger.



mountain biking body armour might save you some time in developing an exo skeleton, combined with an inner neoprene wet suit for controlling any mechanical advantages.

I suggest you do some anotomical research and try to copy the basic muscle groups, for starters you would need three linear actuators just to control the basic movement of the human sholder, with careful programming you could have a small amount of rotational mechanical advantage between all actutors given the angle of lift being used.

 

This is what I love about bit-tech...

This is a fantastic (meaning way out there idea, as well as being cool) idea and rather than just laughing at the guy, folks that have some idea of what it would take to pull it off chime in!

I am not surprised, giving this communities history of helping its own, its just nice to see.

Now on to my .02. You are going to have to have an electrical power source of some type, even if it is just for sensors. Focus your attention on up and coming Lithium Ion and Fuel Cell technologies. Of course in this type of design, every ounce matters.

Check this out for some tech about wearable muscles (a motorcycle design you basically hang from)

 

UPDATE #1 WARNING: BAD PICTURES!

Hi all,
This is update numbero uno!

This comes from a day of salvaging, scraping, and searching, and here are the results.

[EDIT]: I decided to remove the pictures, because frankly, they embarrass me.

Okay, that's it for now... By the way, does anybody know how to de-solder the components not soldered to the back of the board?

By the way, these are my pictures, i just hosted them on Flickr.​

 

Hmm... Where are you going with this?

 

What exactly do you mean?

I'm just doing it for the heck of it...And i have an obsession with iron man.

 

Nono, I'm all for building the suit.

I was referring to the kit you posted. What is your intention with all that?
What kind of budget and time line do you have for this project?
Care to fill us in on some design details?
Realistically, will this actually happen?

You have my interest, none the less.

 

Ohhhh...

What i just posted was what i scavenged today, seeing as i want to keep the prices low, as I have an Uber slim budget, so i'll scavenge (note: that doesn't mean steal!) for most of the stuff I need. As for timeline, i'll mostly be working weekends and vacations, so i'm estimating this might take a while.

As for design details... Haven't worked on that yet.
I going electronic systems, power systems, strength amplification, design, and those pesky rockets.

 

I get a sense you don't comprehend the immensity of the task at hand.

If you want this to work: design first, build second (Even Tony Stark had to do it in that order mate)

You need to know exactly what needs to be built before thinking about building it... personally I think you should be in the research stage for over a year before touching a screw.

I also think budget will be a big constraint... even the most modest of estimates puts this project well into the 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' range. That's just my POV though - you may have some tricks up your sleeve.

There are some 'simpler technologies' out there that can be compare to this project:
The peroxide jetpact design that is popular was developed by a couple guys in a garage. It's a less ambitious project and it cost hundreds of thousands, and it took decades.

The Mollar Skycar project - this man has been at it for a lifetime with millions into it, and it's only JUST starting to show promise.


I don't want to deter you - I just want to make you you get the reality before wasting your time and money.


I wish you the best.