While not rather in a cave, the concept of making your own exoskeleton with restricted tools does have a Tony Stark esque vibe. [Andrew Piccinno] is a mechanical engineer pursuing the dream of 3D printing a full-body exoskeleton called 3X0. It’s a job he’s been ruminating on since college, however the work truly began in earnest about five months ago. Unfortunately, there are as well many photos to include here, however inspect out his Instagram or makeprojects for more photos.

To make sure parts fit, [Andrew] started with producing a fit together of his body. After running fifty photos of himself holding fairly still with some photogrammetry software, he had a decent mesh. While measurements weren’t millimeter-accurate, the family member sizes of whatever were fairly accurate. While the style is modeled with his measurements in mind, all the different pieces are parametric, which in theory would enable somebody to modify the styles to in shape their own body.

So far, all the parts have been completely 3D printed, except for steel spheres bearings, gas pistons, as well as tension bands. The non-3D printed parts are chosen to be simple to acquire as the gas piston is just 100 N furniture pistons. The style process includes rather a bit of math, movement study, as well as simulation to make sure the part that he’s printing will not only in shape however move correctly. many parts, such as the shoulder, are developed around a big custom bearing that enables the piece to move properly with the user’s joints.

While still in the middle of development, [Andrew] has made some serious progress, as well as we’re looking ahead to seeing it completed. The present style is primarily passive with just a few springs as well as pistons, however he is already looking ahead to making it active to the degree that it can augment a user’s motions rather than just taking the tons off. It’s remove that [Andrew] believes that exoskeletons are a look into a prospective future, as well as we couldn’t agree more. In a similar vein, perhaps the methods utilized in this powered exoskeleton arm on a budget plan might be utilized to power the 3X0?