My Mark IV Arc Reactor - slightly unique design

[CaptainMorgan]

This is originally a thread I put over on cosplay.com a while back and got no reception. I mostly used it as a build log, but I think you guys will appreciate.

First off, I did all of these for the sole purpose of doing an out of armor Tony Stark. When I actually do a Ironman suit of armor I'll build a separate version to fit into the chest piece.

With that said I wanted to make an oversized arc reactor on purpose to make it easier to see/notice in costume. I also wanted to make it as thin as possible to seem as if embedded in my chest.

So two years ago I whipped together a quick Tony Stark costume for my first con ever, DragonCon 2010. Here is what I was working with.

This was my quick and dirty arc reactor for the costume that I whipped together in the two days before the con with using minimal fabrication. I ordered the LEDs and then the rest was made out of stuff around the house and the housing of a large tap light.

Turned out decent for an under the shirt arc reactor, but this time I mean business.

First off I'm going to go ahead and give Tuxedo Tony a run since I bought my very own designer Tux for my wedding last May. Here is me in my Tux on my honeymoon cruise alongside Tony Stark in the Tux. I'm not all done up like Tony, but you can compare the Tuxedos and see they are pretty much identical. I have also ordered a Tuxedo shirt without pleats to match Tony's and let the light show through better.

A couple of my costume props just for your enjoyment. Bow tie and me Tony Stark sun glasses. I have a short highball glass in the mail to complete the accessories.

 

[CaptainMorgan]

Now to the meat of the project, arc reactor Mark IV 2.0.

Here is a screenshot from the film.

Part of this build is that in the past year my job got its own rotary engraver table and I'm the tech/designer for all the engraveable products we use. I am putting that to use in my design.

Today I went and bought the stock I need, but the piece for the top design is on order getting shipped from a warehouse to my home. I went ahead and cut out all my other pieces though and will start working on them tonight.

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The piece in the middle on the top row is actually a small section cut off the end of a PVC pipe joint that has an outer diameter of 5". I sanded down the inside of the PVC piece to give me more clearance to work with LEDs, I'll explain that more later. All the other pieces were cut out on the engraver to exact sizes to match my design based off the PVC piece. The white piece on the top left is the back plate that fits inside the pvc ring. The small white ring will be glued inside the pvc ring and will be the lip that the back plate sits against. The bottom row is the top acrylic piece, the lower one the LEDs will be mounted into, and a white back plate that will be attached on back side of the acrylic.

Here are the two halfs sitting how they will eventually be assembled.

The PVC ring will be painted silver to match the top sheet so none of that white will actually be visible. The two acrylic sheets will be bonded together with an adhesive compound specifically for this purpose. I'll post what it is when I go dig it up. Then on the lower, smaller piece I will drill holes in the sides and glue a whole bunch of LEDs around the circle aimed inwards. The light should transmit through the acrylic and make the whole thing glow without any hot spots from the LEDs. I'll also sand the top surface to make it so the light refracts off the top surface to make it glow correctly instead of just being transparent.

Then when I'm all done with that I'll design the top piece that gives it the right look in AutoCad and cut it out in one piece with the engraver.

I have a quick little video of the engraver cutting out one of the acrylic circles from my old Blackberry phone.

 

[CaptainMorgan]

Alright, finished my design and cut the first prototype.

Definitely some tweaks to be made and have this recut before the final version, but turned out pretty good at this point. This picture is just the parts sitting together. There will be plenty of sanding, painting, wiring, and gluing to get it to a fully assembled state.

The very bottom layer was cut a little too thin and I lost some material on the edge of the innermost triangle area. I'll recut that piece for sure.

Now starting to get some better progress and pictures. I didn't get through this as fast as I'd hoped, but I'm down to painting and final assembly for tomorrow, and I have the day off work.

I have the led's all wired up and installed. I still have to do a bunch of sanding to diffuse the light better, but it already is crazy bright. Here is all the pieces together with the re cut top layer. The changes turned out really well, this is a solid version.

Now to show off the goods. Here is it turned on. There are 20 white LEDs in there along with five wide angle blue LEDs to give it a slight blue tint. The white is so bright you can only barely see the blue. That's alright, its mostly white in the movies with just a hint of blue, so its pretty close to what I was going for.

Well I finished it for DragonCon, and the only thing I really messed up was the clearcoat. The adhesion promoter, high build primer, and Metallic undercoat went essentially perfect, the issue was that the clear of the same brand came out of the gun waaaay faster than the base coat. I wasn't prepared for this so there is way too much clearcoat. I'm going to recut and repaint the top plate (I have the design already, so the cutting is the easy part), because honestly I feel that is easier than sanding off the clear out of all those tight spots and polishing.

I'll get some shots of just the light up some time this week, but for now we'll settle for full costume shots.

 

[CaptainMorgan]

Alright, last post for now, I swear.

I created the design in AutoCad, and after closer inspection upon my last version there are a couple other small tweaks in the design to get it really close to screen accurate proportions. Once I finalize the design I will be more than happy to release it to anyone interested (it's just a 2D layout though, not something for a pep file). It could still be a great template for people to use, and it doesn't matter that I made it over sized. It will scale just fine.

I'll get some finished product pictures of the final version for this year's Dragoncon once I get my other props finished (for other costumes).

 

[Mockle]

thats a huge arc.... :confused

 

[afzafri]

nice dude...but It is a little bit huge don't you think?

 

[CaptainMorgan]

thats a huge arc.... :confused

Yes it is.

I know its scaled up in size, but it makes my Tony Stark a huge draw from across the room in the middle of a con. Plus, this one was designed primary for being worn underneath a shirt. I built it with a ton of LEDs (20) to be able to be seen clearly even in the daytime through the shirt. It also doesn't have as much blue as I intended, so I'll adjust the ratio of white and blue LEDs, and perhaps even make the brightness of each set separately adjustable to get it just right.

I'm going to make a new version with the templates scaled down to screen accurate size for wear out in the open. I wanted to edit a couple small details that I can pick out now that I've stared at the design long enough. I'm going to build an actual armor set eventually, and this one will fit inside the chest armor.

The scaling will be very easy. The only piece that I don't cut from scratch is the outer circle which came from a large PVC joint that I sliced off a section of. I'll check hardware stores for something the right diameter that I can work with. I'd prefer to not have to fabricate that myself.

I also need to find a closer paint match, and take the time to spray test panels with my gun before rushing in. Last time the paint didn't come out that well because I was pressed for time right before a con.

The one other thing that I'm considering too is using what I cut to make molds to make the pieces to be even more screen accurate. Ideally the six straight pieces coming from the outer edge to the outer triangle should be inside the clear layer. Look at the reflections on the screen shot. Then everything else sits on top. I also want to look for some fasteners that would look right for what I cut into the piece, and then cut that spot out instead. I'd glue in the heads of the fasteners in place. It would be a small detail that would help bring it all together.

After all those changes I think I could get myself a top of the line prop.

 

[CaptainMorgan]

Also I'd love to freely share my CAD files once I work out the last kinks. I can also save them as simple graphics too. If I still had access to a 3D CAD software I could make it one solid design that could be 3D printed by others. Perhaps I'll try to recruit someone else to do that step and give it away for anyone interested. It would be pretty easy to extrude each 2D layer that I have the correct depth and then stack.

 

[MrDynamite]

Working on a similar design (4")
based on a 3d file I found on the RPF.

 

[ReVolt]

Here's a wearable that's just 2.5" across...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnV81OEIgMg