You, as Tony Stark, as Iron Man

Step 3: Arc Reactor: Intro

Before I begin describing the building process, I would like to clarify a simplification I made. Because I knew the arc reactor would (in most cases) be hiding behind my muscle shirt, I elected to design parts that would cast the characteristic arc reactor patterns on the shirt instead of making a ridiculously accurate model. Not only would this be more cost effective, but it would build quicker and probably be more durable than extremely detailed models.

The breakdown of the Arc Reactor section is outlined below:

Step 1: Design
Step 2: Fabrication
Step 3: Construction

Comments

[Dreamer7]

How much will this cost and is this design still look cool if it didn't have a shirt over the top

[mb inventor]

what do you mean

[geekdude]

I found a real easy way to make a nice looking arc reactor. I took the coils from an electric motor that I think came from an old floppy drive, or maybe a cd drive. Idk i just had it lieing around, and then I took apart a vcr head from a dead vcr which i also had lieing arround. the top half was perfect for the body. then all I had to do was dremel out the middle of the coil so it would fit around the center and solder in some superbright leds. I used the coils as positive and the base as negitave. Its a bit small but real nice for the amount of effort involved. I thought of this the first time I saw him wearing the reactor. I was like he totaly has glowing floppy drive motor innards embedded in his chest. I would make an instructable but I forgot to take pictures of the process, and I don't have another dead vcr to take apart.

[Jamo_G]

Yup, I've though similarly. And the best part is that they come in all shapes and sizes. I'm sure there exists an device using brushless DC (the type of motor you probably disassembled) motors that provides an optimally sized stator (the structure made of laminated steel which has wires wrapped around it).