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I didn't have a lot of time to make a great Halloween costume this year
so I figured I'd do something relatively simple that was still eye catching
and cool. I wanted my Arc Reactor to look pretty realistic, but not
necessarily 100% movie accurate, so it's kind of a cross between a MkI
and MkII version. There are some things I'd change on the next version
(and I'll point them out) but overall I'm pretty pleased with it.
The reactor is attached to an old heart rate monitor strap and it's
powered by a 3 volt battery pack that just slips in my jeans pocket. It's
light weight and is comfortable to wear for several hours at a time. In
the photos below you can see how bright it is- it easily shines through
my t-shirt under normal office lighting conditions and is very bright at
night.
Follow along and see how it's made.....
Update: see page six for the new style reactor!
Step 1Tools and materials

There are a few necessary tools:
soldering iron
dremel tool
drill bits
metal snips/shears
jeweler's saw (or some kind of saw to cut metal and plastic)
needle nose pliers
wire cutters
files/sandpaper
glue gun
And for materials:
thin brass sheet
plastic sheet ( I used Delrin- you can buy Delrin and acrylic sheet from
Colorado Plastics)
clear acrylic sheet
copper wire- 22ga and 24ga thickness solid wire
sheet metal- 22ga thickness (.025in or about .5mm thickness)
PCB (printed circuit board)- at least 4" square (Radio Shack sells some
that measures around 4.5" x 6")
several small bolts - I used 10ea 2.5mm bolts and 3ea 3mm bolts
w/nuts
3 volt battery
11 ea NTE30027 surface mount LED's - I bought them from a local
supplier but you can order them here:
http://www.cablesandconnectors.com/30000-30.HTM
battery hook up wire
As an option for LEDs and making a circuit board you could use these
insteadhttp://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?
products_id=8735
I'll make specific notes about the materials used and possible
substitutes/workarounds on the specific construction pages.

Please note: be careful cutting sheet metal as the edges can be very
sharp and it's pretty easy to cut yourself.
Step 2Start with the backplate
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The first thing I did was draw up a general plan so I could figure out
how everything would fit together. The outer diameter of the Arc
Reactor is 4", so if you print the plan photo to that scale it will give you
a good guide and help you get everything lined up correctly. All the
measurements used in the drawings are in inches and they are really
just to be used as a guide- I really just eyeballed everything as I was
making it. By no means are they meant to be exact measurements.
The most important thing is getting the proportions correct so
everything will fit together during the final assembly.
The easiest way I found to cut out all the parts is to draw the patterns
on paper and then glue the patterns to my sheet plastic or sheet metal
using rubber cement and cut the patterns out with a jeweler's saw.
Then file all the edges and smooth them with sandpaper.
So let's start by making the outer ring/backplate assembly. Begin by
cutting a 4" diameter disc from PCB material. There are two copper
traces cut (or etched) into this as well as a couple of solder pads on the
center so you can solder down the LED's. There are 11 LED's- 10 for
the clear ring and one for the center lens. The LED's I used are a
surface mount type part# NTE 30027. Even though they are a surface
mount component they are pretty easy to solder to the copper
traces.The LED's sit directly under a clear acrylic ring and they are
spaced 36 degrees apart- just make sure they are all facing the same
direction! I simply connected the LED copper traces to the center
solder pads and then drilled two small holes and soldered some wires
from the back of the board to go to my 3v battery.
UPDATE!
Instead of having to make a circuit board and solder all the tiny LEDs
you can just get some of these little guys and wire them in parallelhttp://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?
products_id=8735
Just glue them down to a back plate and you're good to go!
The outer ring was cut from some thick plastic sheet- I used Delrin
because it cuts well and is pretty durable. A good substitute would be
1/2" MDF sheet. I should have painted the ring silver but I ran out of
time......maybe I'll make a machined aluminum ring in the future. There
are 10 2.5mm allen head bolts evenly spaced at 36 degree intervals
around the ring. I just drilled a pilot hole, then drilled a countersink for
the bolt head so it would sit just below the surface of the ring. I actually
threaded the holes for the bolts but you could probably just shove them
in there with a bit of glue.
The outer ring is glued to the PCB backplate with a hot glue gun. Then
run a bead of hot glue over the LED's and the copper traces. This will
protect the LED's, help diffuse the light and keep the circuit from being
shorted out when the remaining parts are installed.
Now you need a lens for the center. I made mine from acrylic sheet,
but you could use just about any kind of lens or clear plastic part that
would fit. The thing to remember is that if it is too tall then it will come
into contact with other parts later on so watch the height. I used a
scotchbrite pad on the lens to help diffuse the LED light.
Next an old heart rate monitor strap was glued and screwed to the
backside of the backplate. The two screws went through the PCB and
into the outer ring, helping to hold everything together.
Step 3Make the inner ring assembly
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Now we have to make the inner ring. This is a clear ring that is held by
a frame (which I call the lower spider frame.)
First cut the inner ring from clear acrylic sheet and rub it with a
scotchbrite pad (steel wool would also work.)
Now comes the tedious part- there are 20 arms that need to be cut out,
bent and then placed around a central ring to form the lower spider
frame. The dimensions on this are not critical, but you have to
constantly check the fit so that it will fit into your previously constructed
backplate assembly. You also have to make sure that the clear ring will
fit into the slots cut into the spider arms.
The distance from the outer edge to the opening of where the large
notch is approximately .08 inches. The trick is that you will have to
adjust the fit of this to your acrylic ring as well as the outer ring. You
want the spider to essentially press fit snug into the outer ring. Then fit
the acrylic ring to the spider. I can guarantee that you will probably
have to do some trimming because the spider is so difficult/frustrating
to make so that everything is aligned properly. I had to trim probably
every opening to get everything to fit properly.
The easiest way to trim the opening in the spider is to use a small
sanding disk with a Dremel tool to carefully trim the opening to fit the
acrylic ring. The acrylic ring doesn't have to be a perfect fit as it's held
in place by the copper wire wrapped around it.
I cut both the central ring and spider arms from 22 ga sheet steel using
sheet metal shears and a jeweler's saw. A dremel tool would also work
and will come in handy cleaning up all the rough edges. The finished
arms were then welded to the central ring. Then the center bottom ring
was cut from steel sheet and welded to the spider frame assemblynote how it is positioned. I was short on time so I left out the additional
slots. The bolt holes were threaded for 3mm bolts.
As a substitute for sheet steel you could make the parts from brass or
copper sheet and then solder the arms to the central ring and then
solder the central bottom ring to the spider frame assembly.The parts
could also be made from thin plastic sheet as well and just glued
together, but they wouldn't be as durable.
Now you have to make 10 little brass tab thingies. These sit on top of
the clear ring after it has been placed into the spider frame assembly
and then they are then wrapped with 22ga copper wire. Make sure
when you wrap the wire it doesn't stick out too far outside the spider
frame arms- make sure to check the fit with the backplate assemblymine is just a light friction fit. The brass tab thingies should be about
the same width as your clear ring and the four little tabs should just
stick out over the edges of the spider arms. The last bit is to solder
some short 24ga copper wires to the tabs.
Step 4Make the top ring assembly
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The top ring assembly is made just like the spider frame assembly- it's
cut from 22ga steel sheet but you could also use brass sheet or plastic.
I oxidized my steel assembly to get the black finish but a sharpie pen
or black paint would also work. There are three 3mm bolts that go
through the spider and slotted ring- there is a nut on the backside so
the assembly stays put when everything is put together in the final
assembly.
There is a central ring that is made from aluminum but it could also be
made from plastic and painted silver. It's held on with some thin copper
wire and a few dabs of glue from a glue gun.
The last bit is a coil of coper wire that has been formed into a ring. I
used wire that was coated red- you could use a marker to color the
wire. The wire was wound around a drill bit, formed into a circle and
then glued together with a glue gun. The coil ring is then placed around
the bolts.
Step 5Testing and final assembly
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Plug in your battery and make sure all your LED's light up. Then mount
the center top ring assembly to the inner ring assembly by lining up the
three bolts and tightening them until the bottom of the top ring
assembly sits just above the inner ring assembly. You can add a dab of
glue if you want to the bolts to make sure they don't come loose.
Now press the entire assembly into the backplate assemblynote the
orientation, making sure everything is aligned correctly. If the fit is really
loose, you can put a couple dabs of glue between the wrapped copper
wire sections and the backplate to hold everything together.
That's it! Now go finish your Iron Man armor suit...... :)
Step 6New style reactor
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So here is a new reactor based on what I believed the Iron Man 2

movie reactor would look like based on early screen shots. Notice that
it now has eight segments instead of ten. It is constructed in a similar
manner to the original reactor except that it is made from stainless
steel and aluminum instead of plastic. This particular pair of reactors
were built for a custom Iron Man theme motorcycle so they had to be
able to withstand heat and vibration. They measure four inches in
diameter and one inch deep.
The first thing I did was make a simple model in Sketchup to get an
idea what the finished reactor would look like. Note that there are
slight changes from the Sketchup model and the finished reactors.
The first thing I made were separate circuit boards for the LEDs. These
are different from my original reactor in that they have 100 Ohm
resistors connected to one side of the LED to protect the LED from
burning out. The circuit boards get wires soldered to them and are
then bolted to the stainless back plate with small hex head brass
screws.
The spider is made from stainless steel that is welded together. There
are four small brass hex head bolts that are threaded into each section
of the spider and then they are soldered together to keep them from
coming loose. The lenses were turned from clear acrylic and them the
outer lens was inserted into the spider and the wire wrapping began.
The wire wrapping takes forever since it's pretty hard to keep it straight.
There's about 50 feet of wire in each reactor.
The outer ring is turned from thick wall aluminum tubing using a lathe
and there are four holes drilled and threaded into the back side so it
can be mounted to the stainless steel back plate. There is also a thin
lip machined into the front of the ring- this will hold a clear protective
lens on the finished piece.
The center piece is also turned from aluminum. There is a lip machined
into the back side to fit the small brass screen. The back side is also
drilled and threaded for two allen head screws so it can be bolted to
the stainless back plate- the screws go through the center lens to hold
it in place and the center aluminum piece fits into the stainless spider.
There are also several small bras hex head screws that hold the
stainless spider to the back plate.
Next the outer ring and clear lens are bolted in place. The clear lens
slides into the outer ring from the back and gets a bead of clear
silicone to seal it to the outer ring. This assembly is then fitted to the
back plate.
Since these reactors were built for a motorcycle they needed to be able
to take 12v input power and output no more than 4v. To accomplish this
I used a power supply circuit from Adafruit
www.adafruit.com/index.php. The power supply is adjustable and can
accept up to 20v input- it's a really easy to build kit that works great.
These reactors were a lot more work to make than my original reactors
but I think they really came out nice. All in all there's 26 stainless steel
parts, 32 laser welded joints, 40 soldered joints, 3 acrylic lenses, 2
machined aluminum parts, 50 micro sized brass hex head bolts, 6 allen
head bolts, 50ft. of copper wire, 9 surface mount LEDs, 9 surface
mount resistors, 2 circuit boards and 1 brass mesh piece in each
reactor- whew!

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Update: see page six for the new style reactor!

Step 1Tools and materials

substitutes/workarounds on the specific construction pages.

Step 2Start with the backplate

Step 3Make the inner ring assembly

Step 4Make the top ring assembly

Step 5Testing and final assembly

Step 6New style reactor

So here is a new reactor based on what I believed the Iron Man 2

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