re: Home armor fabrication and industrial lego
The Helmet is Easy. Full Face Motorcycle helmets that are out of Spec or been thru a crash and suffered some damage are cheap on CL, and can be decked out and up-armored the same as all the plate.
A smartphone running VR software hooked up to an external camera can solve a Lot of the problems with traditional helmets. And you can look like a Gundam.
On top of that, Voice amplification and modulation software can be used from a throat mic, and allow for effective communication with the outside world. Voice commands to the smartphone can activate parts of the armor.
We have all the tech, off the shelf now. It's kinda amazing.