My first home made Arc Reactor WIP

[IROCthisZ28]

I'm probably going to get a lot of flack about this not being entirely accurate but it so far has been a fun project, and I'm not even done yet!!! Not going for 100% screen accuracy, just toying with how to make it. Saw a couple of threads here, videos on youtube, and thought I'd combine the lot of them and try my own version for fun :rolleyes Eventually once I feel happy with how I handle the materials and such I'll make a screen version. Hope you guys like it, its only about 50% done






I still need to wire up the outter ring LEDs and such but I'm stuck until my new Soldering Iron arrives. Never really wired anything up before (LED wise), and I got a soldering gun which apparently is completely the wrong thing to buy. Oh well, as soon as it arrives I'll finish the lights, then get started on the silver wiring on the top parts

 

[Ray22]

Looks good so far but your in the wrong section this should go under Replica props :facepalm.

 

[Fuzzual]

nice man, i love home builds. There is something about the creativity, and yours is looking good!

 

[SofaKing01]

Hey IROC,

I wouldnt expect any flack at all! You did a FANTASTIC JOB!

 

[IROCthisZ28]

Looks good so far but your in the wrong section this should go under Replica props :facepalm.

Sorry, still a noob here trying to figure out how to navigate this place :rolleyes

nice man, i love home builds. There is something about the creativity, and yours is looking good!

Thanks =) I am still waiting on my friggin soldering iron so I can make the upper rings that go around the copper bindings, along with being able to wire up and solder the leds to illuminate the outter part better. I used the little wire thats there to test the brightness of the single LED and it should come out quite nicely :$

Hey IROC,

I wouldnt expect any flack at all! You did a FANTASTIC JOB!

Thank you so much!!! I can't wait to finish this one up and move on to my next one. I go to dollar stores and hardware stores now thinking so much differently then I did previously. I don't go in like oh hey that should catch my gf's hair better, I go in like man this would make such a bad ass part if I just combine this and this etc etc etc

 

[IROCthisZ28]

So my iron came in today, and I made the mistake of attempting to do the solder drops on the top of the arc...yeah....no...I completely f*ck*d it up and have to restart the whole clear ring process again. Not only that, I have no idea other than online where to locally get the ring I need as I ordered the one I did have online. Also burned the living crap out of my middle finger. Fed up for the night, going to see tomorrow if I can somehow recover this project at all.

 

[joostin]

So my iron came in today, and I made the mistake of attempting to do the solder drops on the top of the arc...yeah....no...I completely f*ck*d it up and have to restart the whole clear ring process again. Not only that, I have no idea other than online where to locally get the ring I need as I ordered the one I did have online. Also burned the living crap out of my middle finger. Fed up for the night, going to see tomorrow if I can somehow recover this project at all.

What did you use for your original clear ring?

If you ruined it by heating the copper wire to 'ball' the solder on to, then I would suggest a plastic that is a little more heat resistant (duh, :lol)...

If you didn't use Perspex (acrylic), I would suggest using a piece of that. It's readily available, and not too expensive for small quantities...and you can get it in a multitude of thicknesses, colours and clarities (clear, matte, frosted etc) and make it whatever you need.
It should handle quite a bit of indirect heat with no trouble.

Depending on your source, you could have it cut to a workable size and do the rest yourself, or probably pay a little extra and have it turned into a disk. More info can be shared on that should it be needed - otherwise, that's my bit of advice for the plastic!

 

[madmikeee]

Hey IROC,

I wouldnt expect any flack at all! You did a FANTASTIC JOB!

Agreed!. The only flack I give is when people give flack for it not being 100% accurate LOL. This is a hobby and if you as the builder don't care why should anyone else?

Looks awesome!

 

[IROCthisZ28]

Sorry about the rant yesterday, I seriously melted part of my finger off and was in quite the rage :angry

What did you use for your original clear ring?

I used a 2" umbrella hole ring plug. Not exactly something to use heat with apparently, at least not when your learning to use a soldering iron. I took your advice and went to Home Depot and got two small sheets of acrylic. Now I need to find a way to cut it as I don't have a dremel yet :darnkids Getting into this hobby is quite expensive from the start lol. I might try to aquire another patio ring and use this glue my gf showed me today that dries up and looks just like solder. I wanted to finish this quickly as it was going to be a gift for my step dad so I'll experiment a bit further on my own pieces

Agreed!. The only flack I give is when people give flack for it not being 100% accurate LOL. This is a hobby and if you as the builder don't care why should anyone else?

Looks awesome!

Thanks again for the support!! Can't wait to get going on this again. My gf is behind me drawing up the sketches for her Rogue costume and is bugging me to keep going on the Arc. Its a little late for me to be struggling to cut this plastic without the right tools so it will have to wait until the morning

 

[joostin]

I took your advice and went to Home Depot and got two small sheets of acrylic. Now I need to find a way to cut it as I don't have a dremel yet

Good stuff! If you've got a hand drill or a drill press, look in to hole saws. You can get them in a ton of different sizes, as well as adjustable ones. Depending on the brand/material, they can be cheap or expensive - so find one that's the right size and in a suitable budget for the amount of work it'll get in the long run.

It can definitely get expensive! A task that started as a small DIY project to kill some time turned into a $200+ project/obsession, which at the moment has stalled. Oops. :lol
But I've seen stories of much, much more money and time haha

In the end, the expensive things are usually investments, so I guess it works out in the end! A little daunting at the start though.

But, push on - it starts to work out.

Good luck!

 

[djkibaman]

looking so far

 

[electraflier]

Looking really cool! I am going to try to use blue and white LEDs as I had heard it gives a warmer more movie glow. I'll have to try it!
Keep up the good work!
M

 

[IROCthisZ28]

I actually just went and purchased some blue LEDs to try that same exact thing out =) Should have some pics up tonight (assuming I don't melt my finger again lol)

 

[IROCthisZ28]

Quick question, I have some blue LEDs I'm setting into a harness I have. They won't light up when power is given, even though all the other ones do with the two AA power source, however, it lights up with three AAA power source. Any suggestions how to get it to illuminate?

 

[IROCthisZ28]

Not much but some progress, redid it a little bit and am almost finished with the top half, still sorting out my LED issue (color wise), and the wiring. I'm an electrician so messing with wires when I get home after work isn't my favoritest thing to do :lol

 

[joostin]

Looking pretty swish!

What did you use for/where did you get the outer front ring? It looks great!

 

[IROCthisZ28]

Its a 2 1/2" EMT lock nut

 

[CoolHandLuke]

Quick question, I have some blue LEDs I'm setting into a harness I have. They won't light up when power is given, even though all the other ones do with the two AA power source, however, it lights up with three AAA power source. Any suggestions how to get it to illuminate?

Do you have the leds running in parallel or series? It sounds like you have them in series. This means the 2 AA (3VDC) is being distributed across all of your leds (This is where voltage drop comes into play). The 3 AAA (4.5VDC) has more voltage and therefore enough to illuminate the leds when distributed. You could simply run them in parallel instead. Here's a link for a led voltage calculator to help solve the V Drop problem: LED Resistor Calculator

 

[joostin]

Its a 2 1/2" EMT lock nut

Cool, thanks!
I've seen a couple of people use them for outer rings.
Is yours a metal one, or PVC?

I'll have to explore some more as it might be a very useful piece in my next reactor build!

I'd love to see how you wire it all up when it's finished; with the central lights and the individual segments. But, lookin' good!

 

[IROCthisZ28]

Do you have the leds running in parallel or series? It sounds like you have them in series. This means the 2 AA (3VDC) is being distributed across all of your leds (This is where voltage drop comes into play). The 3 AAA (4.5VDC) has more voltage and therefore enough to illuminate the leds when distributed. You could simply run them in parallel instead. Here's a link for a led voltage calculator to help solve the V Drop problem: LED Resistor Calculator

I have no idea, I'm going to say they are wired series as I'm taking a slightly easy way out (well not really). I purchased this LED light set that is supposed to be used for floral arrangements from Michael's but they were completely the wrong color (there was no way to no before hand). I took a chance but I'm just changing the ones out and putting mine on instead. I made the blue one work and it was completely off in color compared to the rest so I can't even use it lol

Cool, thanks!
I've seen a couple of people use them for outer rings.
Is yours a metal one, or PVC?

I'll have to explore some more as it might be a very useful piece in my next reactor build!

I'd love to see how you wire it all up when it's finished; with the central lights and the individual segments. But, lookin' good!

I'll get some more pics up later tonight, as I'm working the Tesseract I made over a little more. The one I'm using is metal, I feel it makes more sense than a piece of plastic considering everything is technically supposed to be those metallic materials, plus it has a nice weight to it