Full size/1:1 scale B1 Battle Droid

[Out2gtcha]

With the modeling room down ATM (mold from a leaky sink that I have cleaned and dried out to a point but am waiting till spring to fully dismantle and re-drywall) and a brand new very large FDM printer on hand along with my two resin printers, I have not been able to do much actual plastic modeling, and have instead been concentrating on doing some 3D printing.

 

After I got the largerr volume FDM printer, there were a couple "dream projects" on my list including a 4' - 5' B-wing fighter from some of the Star Wars series (Rebels) as well as a life size 1:1 scale B1 Battle Droid.

 

I decided the life size battle Droid would be a good start, kinda feeling like Anikin Skywalker, building his own Droid!

 

The printer plate is 350mm squared, so a lot of room to print off multiple parts at one time. 

I have made the entire droid out of ABS, as it is strong, light, cheaper than other options for the same strength, and most importantly, can be welded together without the use of traditional glue, just some melted ABS in acetone.

 

I DL the files for the B1 from Droid Division, containing more than 100 individual components.

 

 

 

A LOT of these parts will unfortunately need a ton of post processing and sanding/filling/priming before paint and assembly......but with the ABS mix I made, it will knock down some of the more substantial print lines and errors.

 

I have not started the post processing yet, as I've still got a few things to figure out first.

Printing out a life size 6'3" (with antennas) Droid is a bit daunting, and has to this date used 4-6 reels of resin and I'm not even remotely done yet.

 

The droid will be held together with furniture hardware and will have a PIR sensor that will react to movement and trigger a bread board with a mini voice processor that will spit out some funny B1 Droid phrases when triggered. 

 

I have about 100 phrases so far, some really funny ones too if you are a SW junkie like myself.

ATM, I have varying boxes with life size unfinished Droid parts in them....chest/head and soon to be neck box, a box for legs, one for arms and shoulders, and one for hips/spine and a final one that I will eventually move accessories into like his backpack parts, antenna and tips, as well as parts for his long range binocs.

 

Chest/head/torso parts:

 

 

 

 

Legs (minus the thighs, have not printed those yet)/feet and ATM, backpack. Turns out we have almost the same shoe size, so the droid is about a size 10.5 US:

 

 

Some of the lower arm parts, shoulders and the smaller box with the hand parts:

 

 

 

 

Spine, lower belly parts and floating "telephone ribs"with soon to be added hip parts, once they are printed:

 

 

 

Some of the individual B1 parts are infact massive, like the main upper chest piece and backing plate that will house all the electronics, and his backpack:

 

 

 

 

Neck parts with dowels and the rest of the forearm parts fresh off the printing plate:

 

 

 

 

So far, with flubs, testing, scrap and the like, I figure this guy has taken about 8-10 lbs of ABS, with some substantial parts still left to print.

 

I really have begun to enjoy this type of thing.....it's now only the MASSIVE amount of post processing/sanding/filling/priming that fills me with a bit of dread. Sanding and filling with SO much room to operate will be a nice change though.....

Fiddling around with a life size humanoid Droid does feel pretty damn cool!

 

He will be fully posable from the waist up and standing only from the waist down for stability reasons, so I'm looking forward to paint, assembly and weathering!

 

Cheers till the next episode!

[Shoggz]

What a fantastic project.

 

”Roger, roger!”

 

 

[Rampenfest]

This is so cool!

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks gents!

The fact that he is 1:1 scale and will be just slightly taller than I am, is completely fascinating to me.

Fiddling with his electronics will be cool too....

 

28 minutes ago, Shoggz said:

What a fantastic project.

 

”Roger, roger!”

 

 

In amongst the 100+ sound effects I have for him, I think I have 10 or more different "Roger Roger"s! lol 

 

I might even try to take him to a Con here if possible when done...

He's going to be quite the spectacle when done!

[Uncarina]

This is a seriously cool project Brian! I’m looking forward to seeing it come to life.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks Tom!

 

Next up is printing out the final two build plates....one containing the thighs, and one containing the upper arms and elbows.

 

The next step after that will be starting the post processing, which starts by slathering a thinner mix of ABS and acetone for smoothing, and a much thicker mix for welding some of the larger parts together.

[LSP_Ray]

Wow, that is cool!

How long do those pieces take to print on average? Those are big pieces.

Are you printing them as solid, or partial fill? My printer lets you specify fill so you can honeycomb inside ranging from 30 to 100% fill which saves on filament. Haven't tried ABS or HIPS yet as haven't really needed to, still playing with PLA.

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks Ray!

 

2 hours ago, LSP_Ray said:

How long do those pieces take to print on average? Those are big pieces.

Are you printing them as solid, or partial fill? My printer lets you specify fill so you can honeycomb inside ranging from 30 to 100% fill which saves on filament. Haven't tried ABS or HIPS yet as haven't really needed to, still playing with PLA.

 

The largest pieces like say the 1 piece upper and lower chest parts took almost 3 lbs of ABS individually and took around 25 hours or so.

Other print boards that had a ton of stuff on them but were not super large took 14 - 18 hours and 1.5 6 2.5 lbs of ABS. 

 

As to settings, everything was printed on a  .04 nozzle with minimum of 4 

passes/1.6mm walls, and an average of 10% - 15% infill.

For the largest parts like upper chest, lower chest, backpack and head, both main and backs sections were printed with 4 walls but 8% infill to keep weight down.

 

Structural parts or parts that needed extra strength or support are printed at 5 walls and 15% - 20% infill.

 

PLA is ok, but I have found ABS a great combo of value, strength and above all ease of sanding and the ability to weld parts together.

[LSP_Ray]

Yeah, I am sure ABS or HIPS is better, but to do that I have to partially disassemble the printer and rebuild it with an enclosure to handle the higher temps. So, I am basically still in learning phase.

[Out2gtcha]

Indeed, it does take higher temps for sure.

The enclosure on the new printer is nice, and keeps the temps of the resin around 65c and 15% humidity.

 

Got the 3/4" aluminum rod in the mail today and couldn't resist a look see, even with things in their rawest of forms.....

 

 

Hiked up the sweat pants not to show off my ultra pasty legs, but to.give an idea of scale.

Things starting to come together now.......

 

lol

 

 

 

 

[scvrobeson]

That's a heck of a project. Build your own Clanker!

 

 

 

Matt 

[Out2gtcha]

17 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

That's a heck of a project. Build your own Clanker!

 

 

 

Indeed! After the wife and I made it through the Clone Wars 2 or 3 times over, as well as all the SW movies, I figured this would be an apropos first project.

Besides, nothing cooler than building a life size droid! 

 

Thighs now printed.................pretty good testament to the design of the droid that I can even put this much of him together without so much as a single pin, or an ounce of glue, just the 3 recommended 3/4" poles for support + gravity. 

 

Everything is 100% raw right off the printing plates, - any support material, and even then, not a perfect job (yet) of removing it all:

 

 

 

 

 

Next up in the queue was the main hip plate. Here it is cooling down after an approximate 18 hour print. 

 

 

 

 

I couldn't resist slipping the main spine support on, and attaching the hips and lower/upper belly parts. In this particular case, I'm still missing the very last print plate, which contains the two hip to thigh connector pieces, but you get the idea. 

Hes coming along, and definitely giving me some needed motivation! 

 

 

 

 

 

That is a 24" ruler next to Roger:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hip to thigh connections parts seen here are prepping to be printed right now............at nearly 20% infill and 5 wall layers, they are going to take about 10 hours to print, as I wanted to keep the weight down as I could, but keeping strength for these parts was paramount.

 

 

 

 

Going to try to start gluing some parts together tonight, and (hopefully) also get some parts slathered in a liquid ABS mix for the first stages of smoothing prior to primer/filler.

 

Cheers till you're older! 

[LSP_Ray]

Wow! This is going to be so cool!

[scvrobeson]

Standard B-1 scheme, or will he a command droid, or a pilot?

[The Madhatter]

Interesting project you have here.  Hopefully it won't be so heavy it collapses on itself. Is there an internal structure to prevent that ? I'm not too familiar with this kind of 3d printing plastic