DIY Iron Man Arc Reactor(first Generation)

by Titanium Rainbow in Craft > Costumes & Cosplay

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DIY Iron Man Arc Reactor(first Generation)

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This is my step by step Tony Stark aka Iron Man arc reactor. Now granted i did this in my room and not a cave and thankfully i do not have a hole in my chest but the purpose is just to make this LOOK like Iron Man's arc reactor

Gathering the Materials

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This is what you'll need

Tools:
Soldering Iron (and solder)
Dremel or drill

Materials:
6 white LED's
a stepper motor (found after dismatleing a VCR player)
wire
9 volt battery,case recomended
bottom of a fountain(firework type of fountain)
electrical tape
resistor


Take the Stand (bottom) Off of the Fountain

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Take the bottom off of the fountain, and drill six holes in it this is where the LED's will go. I gave mine a black paint job because it was originally red. 

Soldering the LED's

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stand assembled.jpg
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 In one of these pictures they are not in the stand, but make sure to solder them when they ARE in the holes that you drilled in the stand. Solder the LED's like this. Solder the positive lead of one to the positive lead of the one next to it, the negative lead of one to the negative lead of the one beside it, and so on. you will probably have to clip the leads to make them shorter because you want all of it to take up as little space as possible.  Tip: the longer lead is the positive one

Wiring

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 This is a confusing step so pay attention.  Now you should have three groups of positive leads and three groups of negative leads. solder 1 wire to each group of positive leads, then solder those wires together( make sure that they run tightly along the fountain stand so that there is just enough room for the three of them to get soldered together, this is the first picture). Do the exact same with the negative leads soldering a wire to each of the three groups of leads and then soldering the three wires together. Now you have two sets of three wires. Solder one end of your resistor to the set of positive wires. If you did all of that right it should look something like this. (Second picture)

Preping the Stepper Motor/ Assembly

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The stepper motor has three parts: the top, the bottom, and the coil. you will need the top and the coil, and the wheel with the shaft on it thats in the bottom. Pull the wheel with the shaft on it off of the bottom and put it on the top. take the coil off and put it aside.Throw the bottom of the stepper motor away we wont be needing that. Now drill a hole in the body of stepper motor where the wires will come out,  In my case there was already a hole there.

Now put the fountain stand inside the top section of the stepper motor, (it should fit snug if you did everything you were supossed to). Pull your sets of wires through the hole, and electrical tape  your fountain stad to the stepper motor. Now put your coil back in so that it rests on the LED's, Glueing this in is optional. 
Tip: If any of your solder connections are touching the metal stepper motor put hot glue or electrical tape over the connections so they dont touch metal against metal, to avoid a short circut should look like this

Hooking It Up to the Battery

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this next part is optional: add a lengthy amout of wire to it for extra room , ending optional mode( unless you want to try to run it on like rainbow power by harnessing a lepracan..... yea) So anyways next thing to do is solder your wires to your battery box, i got mine from jameco but you can get one at RadioShack and other places.

Best and Final Step TRYING IT OUT!!!

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So after you double check everything try it out, see if it works, and have fun!

Hint: if you get electricuted you probably did it wrong