Introduction: Iron Man Mark 1 Repulsor Glove

My take on a Iron Man's repulsor glove. Replaced the typical glow style glove with LEDs this uses a disposable camera flash to add a little flare. Glove is made using simple papercraft.

NOTE: My camera wasn't really fast enough to catch the flash. It's much more dramatic in person.

IMPORTANT: This build uses a camera capacitor that is 300v. The circuit itself can produce up to 10000 volts, this is extremely dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. Please be careful, and I take no responsibility for any injury you may incur. 

Step 1: Materials and Preparation

I tried to keep this project under $50. It might cost you about the same depending on the materials you have on hand.

Electrical component:
- Disposable camera (about ~$5)
- Switches 2x (I used these, whatever you have on hand is fine)
- Wire - 20 gauge hookup wire (had already, whatever you have should be fine)
- Solder (On hand)
- Soldering Iron (On hand)
- Desoldering tool (braid or pump is fine)
- Battery holder (Didn't have one on hand so I just taped the battery in but it is super useful to use one)
- Tap light (~$6 from Home Depot, mainly used for clear plastic piece and possible arc reactor build)
- Electrical tape (On hand)

Papercraft Glove:
- Cheap gloves ($5 pair from Walmart gardening section)
- Spraypaint (~$4, glossy red)
- Xacto knife (picked one up while at walmart ~$3)
- Scissors (On hand)
- Hot glue gun (On hand)
- Cardboard (On Hand)
- Cardstock (~$5 for a large pile)
- Printer (On hand)
- Velcro straps/elastic strips (~$5)

Step 2: Circuitry

NOTE: Capacitor is very dangerous, make sure you discharge it by bridging the two leads while grounded with an insulated screwdriver.

You do not need any knowledge of electronics for this project. I used the circuitry already built in and simply extended the contacts using wire. But it is useful to be good at soldering and desoldering.

1. First thing to do is to remove the lamp. There are 3 copper connectors (hard to see in photo). The easiest thing is to cut them anywhere in between where they're connected to the board and the lamp. Make sure you keep track of halves you cut because you will reconnect them later. If the capacitor is in the way just bend it out of the way a bit. The housing should slide out once the copper connectors are cut.

2. Second, desolder the diode. This is the indicator that the circuit is charged. I put it the indicator in the glove itself, but you can move it anywhere or just leave it where it is.

3. Now, extend the circuits using wire, about 6"-9" of wire for the extensions. Just make sure you reconnect the copper leads you cut earlier with their appropriate halves. You can see in one of the photos I've uploaded what it should look like. 3 wires to the lamp and 2 to the diode. 

4. The circuit is quite simple. You have the charging control which you will want to bridge with a switch so you're not walking around all day with a highly charged capacitor. The trigger should also be bridged with a switch so that you can control when you want the flash to go off. DO NOT: leave the trigger as it is and trigger it with your bare hand; insulate them from each other with some electrical tape.

Summary: Remove lamp, extend those connections with wire. Remove diode, extend it with wire. Wire charge control and trigger to switches.

Step 3: Papercraft Hand

This part is fairly simple. I suggest you download Pepakura Viewer 3:
http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/download/viewer.html

I included the files you needed in .pdf as well. But being able to see how the parts come together using the free viewer is much more useful. Print them out on your card stock. Then just cut them out, fold them and hot glue them together.

TIPS:

1. If your printer asks you to resize do not do it. I found it distorted some of the shapes a bit making it not fit properly.

2. Print out with regular paper to check for size real quick. Some parts to were too small for my short and stubby fingers and oversized palm. You can only get a good fit though trial and error.

3. Getting the palm to fit was the most annoying part since the glove was a little to large. Just make sure you test size first. Larger is always a little better for the palm.

4. The knuckle finger piece will be too small, and the other two pieces will be too long. Just play around with size or use more hot glue to keep them on.

5. Glue on the figures and the back hand plate on first. Leave the front hand plate until you glue on the lamp.

For the forearm I kind of just winged a design. The final image shows the basic idea. Make a piece that two holes near the edges for the elastic strip. I used cardboard. Then I made another quick cardboard thing by folding up a strip to house the circuit. DO NOT: Leave the circuit exposed. 

NOTE: If you just want an iron man glove you can also just do the papercraft part and ignore the electrical part. Or you could put in a tap light circuit but it won't flash and be awesome.

Step 4: Paint It

I went with the straight red glossy paint. The glove itself did not take the paint well because it was porous and also covered in rubber. But the paper pieces looked great. Two to three coats was enough.

TIP:

1. Don't paint with your hand in the glove unless you put on a latex glove on first and some forearm protection like saran wrap. The paint will go through the glove.

2. You can add accents using gold paint or silver paint. To make it look battle scared. 

Step 5: Putting It All Together

After everything is painted you just need to glue the lamp to the glove then put the palm plate on top. Finally I took a plastic circle from a taplight and glued that on top.

Photo 1: Wire management using some electrical tape.

Photo 2: Before the addition of the electronic component. Forearm piece with the straps can be seen.

Photo 3: Forearm piece is really two pieces of cardboard. The lower one has the straps, and is connected to the top piece with more velcro. The top piece simple snaps closed with some velcro. Generous use of electrical tape to hold in circuit.

Photo 4: Image of front plate and lamp in place. Secured with hot glue.

Photo 5: Forearm piece closed. I could have covered it with something but I was too lazy.

Photo 6: Everything closed and all set.

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