DIY Arc Reactor

Hello friends! I just want to share this DIY Arc Reactor I made back in 2011, February to be exact. This was actually my first time to do an electronics DIY project. Although it did not turn out to be what I wanted, it's still awesome and hey, it lights up!

Finished Arc Reactor

This was a scrap build - literally a scrap build since I did not have any plans. I just took what items are available and make the most out of them. Most of the items used in this project are made up from plastic scraps. (Let's go green! Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) This was salvaged from plastic containers of cooking oils, vehicle lubricants and any plastic containers with flat sides.

I cut out the side part of the container and cut out the pieces.
Using those sides, I traced the arm design of the reactor and cut it out using cutter and scissors, whew. That was a lot of work!

The arm pieces of the reactor.

As I said, most of the parts are from stuff that are just lying around the house. The semi-transparent ring you see below is actually a part of a suction cup of a webcam. I cut it out since it's already broken, and I like salvaging stuff. I attached the arms to the inner ring using superglue (I should've used hotglue). I forgot to put something below the assembly so the whole thing got stuck to the table. LOL silly me.

Attaching the Arm to the inner ring.

Almost done!

Now, attaching the copper wires to the suction-cup-cutout-ring.

Wind'em up! 

Since the LED's I bought were laser-type, I used a reflective tape alternative - the shiny paper of cigarette packs, to reflect the light coming from the LED's. I used cardboard for the base 'cause I didn't know about copper clads then. LOL.

Pasting the "reflectors" on the base. 

I hooked up the LEDs in parallel so each LED will receive the same amount of voltage. As you can see below, two LEDs are not functioning, well I think I burned them when I glued them to the board. (Hot glue was too HOT.) The top ring was also made from plastic as with the other pieces and I just used the soldering iron to put those holes around the center.

Turn the lights on!

Now turn the lights off! 

Just me wearing the Arc Reactor.

Jarvis? Why did the lights go out?

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That's it. But I would like to share more with you guys. This is a simple hack got from instructables. Can't build using plastic? Use paper, then put some resin on it. I still haven't tried putting resin (the one they use on pep) on the thing because I don't know where to get them from my location. Can anyone help me? (I'm from Batac, Ilocos Norte by the way)

And last summer, I started the V2 of my Arc reactor. I'm still hoping for a faithful encounter for a possible 'ring'. (Like the suction-cup-cutout-ring-thing) If I found some alternative, I can work on the design. So far, this is what I finished. 

That's just about it for now. Cheers! B-)