How to make an Iron Man Arc Reactor

Step 2: Wiring of the LED's

Some assembly is required for the LED's. I took my round piece of wood that I was using to mount the LEDS on and I started to glue the LED's in the desired places. The circuit from LEDCalc suggested I used 5x 2 LED's and 1 single LED in parallel. This ties in well with the arc reactor so I had the single LED in the middle and the pairs arranged around the edges.

As you can see from picture I made two rings of wire around the edges, the outer wire is 9V and the inner wire is 0V. This ring has the added advantage of providing an secondary route for the power should something go dramatically wrong in construction.

The power wires are passed through the back plate through a small hole, this will allow me to power the LED's when they are encased in the plastic.

Comments

[TheSniper]

(removed by author or community request)

[althor015]

Hope some one is still reading these and commenting on them. I am trying to build one of these and am unsure of the wiring schematic.

Which symbols are the resistors and which the lights and how do the outer wires follow the ring?

Bah! Wish I had taken electronics classes!

[msraynsford]

Still reading and commenting, sadly it sounds like you'd be better off googling for some beginner electronics tutorials.

[dalangalma]

I have a question - where are the resistors in this photo? Are they the little bumps next to each LED? If so, are they soldered together or did you just glue them in contact? Fantastic instructable, by the way. I'm really excited to try it myself.

[msraynsford]

They are the little bumps next to each LED. I pressed the led and the bump into blue tac to hold them roughly in the right place before I soldered them together. It makes it a darn sight easier with these small components.

[c_nic]

so yeahhh...my iron decided to not work right plus i couldnt find a tip sharp enough for this small of work. couldnt keep a tin for anything. ended up killing 2 leds.

shouldve just bought the complete thing. there went 30 bucks. haha my suggestion? buy the complete and leave it to the professional. :S

[Neogarex]

thanks

[Jason Amigo]

Since you used one resistor for every two LEDs, did you double the ohms of the resistors?

[oud25]

where did u buy the individual smd leds

[shilicious]

Is there a way to make the LEDs pulse? I've seen some other versions of the arc reactor that fluctuated gently similar to the way Tony's does, and I'm not handy enough to know how to do so. Any input would be great! Thanks. :]

[syberop5]

what size resistors are u using

[I_AM_IRON_MAN]

is this exactly like on the schematic? if not can you draw a schematic, im trying to make one too because this is great!

[mettaurlover]

This si essentially a schematic; it's ridiculously simple.

[daytona]

Hey msraynsford,

can you send me some of the LED's, polymorph, and the resistors, because my computer won't let me get onto Ebay or Rapid Electronics.

[StarkEnt]

what type of LED's are these? they are tiny? are they SMD?

[msraynsford]

Yes they are SMD. They come in a PLCC-2 package which has one pin on either side. It gives them a very low profile and quite a wide viewing angle

[StarkEnt]

do you have a site they can be purchased at as no stores seem to carrey them.

[msraynsford]

Rapid Electronics or Ebay those were the only two places I looked really.

[StarkEnt]

OK I have all my SMD LEDs and I need to wire them up. I see what is up above in the pic and I have read what you did but I guess I am just not getting it. Is there a Diamgram somewhere? With LEDs hook up to he outer wire ring and which to the inner and so forth.

[vkain]

I used regular LEDs with the 2 long wire leads. Which msraynsford is right about, they don't have as wide a viewing angle as the SMD LEDs but I find the Poly ring really defuses the light and scatters it anyways. I have the SMD LEDs as well, but I found them VERY difficult to wire due to their tiny connection points and my fat fat hands :P although they DO provide a very low profile and can make your arc a lot flatter. I like paul030176's idea about having the electronic bits showing underneath the centre piece so I wired the resistors over the front, but with these LEDs all of the wiring can be done behind the arc. Great instructable by the way msraynsford!

[SCF336]

is there any chance you might put this one up- I love the design mostly in that Ive got regular LEDs already lying around and the SMDs are so friggin hard to work with.

[wbbigdave]

HI, Is it me or is the wiring wrong on the board...from the diagram (from LEDcalc) it shows the resistor 180R in series to the two LEDs on the +V wire, but on yours you have them after the LEDs on the -V wire... Or am I seeing things? Thanks in advance for letting me know I'm being foolish (no sarcasm in this statement, I am very unsure on my electronics)

[msraynsford]

oh yeah, the wiring is wrong, the whole project must not actually work :P I haven't really checked my wiring against the diagram from LEDcalc but I do know that is doesn't matter which side the resistor is on, as long as it is in series with the LED it won't make a difference. Think of the resistor like a dam in a stream. It's job is limit the flow through the LED. It doesn't matter if you put it at the start of the stream or the end it will still slow down the whole stream.

[wbbigdave]

Heh, Damn you photoshopped it all didn't you!!! :P Cool, like i said my knowledge is very limited, thanks for clearing that up. My parts are on order today, hopefully it should come along quite nicely. Thanks for the great instructable!!!

[therealmobius]

Hey Martin when you soldered these was the the negative polarity denoted by the notch or the positive (I really don't want to wire these buggers backwards

[msraynsford]

The notch is negative. Don't forget to have lots of testing as you go along, I tested each two LED's as I wired them. As long as you have a resistor in series with the LED's you wont do them any harm no matter which way round the LED is.

[wolfman26]

how big did you cut the base, what was the diameter of it?

[msraynsford]

the diameter is 75mm, although later ones were reduced to 70mm. This one was cut on a fret saw, although later ones used a hole saw and I put hot glue in the hole afterwards.

[wolfman26]

so is that wire just some regular copper wire, something you could find at a wal-mart or something? any particular gauge?

[msraynsford]

It's actually kynar wire, but any old copper wire should do the job. I expect wal-mart would have something.

[MrManager]

If I use 1500 mcd LEDs will that make the unit impossible to look at?

[browncomputerchair]

some of the lights dont light up around the ring, and in the middle. and when i reverse the electrical flow, the light lights up in the middle. i checked all the soldering points. all the leds are connected to the wire. any responses for a clueless buiider? please respond.

[browncomputerchair]

thanks i tried your suggestion and it worked. thanks a lot

[BigRich]

Sounds like to me you might have some LEDs hooked up backwards.

[PsychoPharaoh]

I just want to make sure that I understand this diagram completely: The pairs of LEDs...are they soldered with negative wire between the positive points? Or is it negative and positive points? Also, the resistors are soldered to the negative wire. I've never done anything like this before, so it seems to me that the resistor would have to be soldered to the positive wire in order to avoid burning out the LEDs. Thanks for the instructions. This is a great project.

[browncomputerchair]

did u solder under the smd leds because the seem so close. if u did solder, how did u manage to do it? is it okay if i just run the wire underneath the connecting point of the smd lights

[msraynsford]

smd devices usually have solder points underneath and round the edge of the device. I tried to solder to the side of the devices but as they were upside down at the time I'm sure I got some on the bottom too.

[browncomputerchair]

would nothing happen if the solder from the postive end touched the negative end? or would there be a conflict and result in the light not working? by the way, thanks so much for the prompt reply. it really helped me out.

[browncomputerchair]

so after i establish the led in its place, i put some solder on the side? and you seemed to have hotglued everything at the end. does that hold it well?

[browncomputerchair]

u also seemed to have a minute amount of solder. it looks very well done. i hardly think mine will look as good, but practice makes perfect right! but, yea, we should likely use only a small amount of solder. man, thinking of rapid electronics in england brings back nostalgia. i used to live in england myself. but, the amount of solder used is not that much?