Close
0%
0%

ArcReactorX

The more 'intuitive' arc reactor! Designed to get attention ;)

Similar projects worth following
Bascially the idea is to make something cool to wear at ComicCon Delhi,India. I am a great fan of Iron Man and i love the idea in the very sense of it. So, i thought it would be great to do an Indianized Iron Man Cosplay at the comic con surprising all my friends :D

Th iron man is symbolized by his Arc Reactor. So, better build an arc reactor but intead of building the plain old arc reactor, i think it should be a bit more intutive and has tons and tons of animations and features.
Human brain is more attentive to motion than still light, So.. I would well add some bling bling to it :)

The arcReactorX is a wearable arc reactor clone which runs on a LiIon Battery from an old cell phone! It has 8 Blue LEDs on the circumfrence and a bright white LED in the centre.

Proposed Features:

  • Small and light
  • Power efficient
  • Bright
  • Change-able modes using a switch
  • Since, it has a battery, we need a battery indicator like a dial on the reactor.So if its 50% charged we light up only half of it. Follow the discharge graphs for more accuracy!
  • Morse Code for SOS
  • A mind blowing startup sequence
  • Knight rider effect on LEDs
  • Breathing effect on the Middle high power LED

  • 1 × MSP430G2452 microcontroller (TSSOP14) Runs off a standard LiIon without any regulator ! Free sample from TI
  • 1 × 2N3904 (SOT23) Discrete Semiconductors / Transistors, MOSFETs, FETs, IGBTs
  • 8 × Blue LEDs (PLCC2) The PLCC2 ones are brighter and can be sourced easily
  • 1 × ULN2803 (8 Ch. Darlington) MSP430 cant output enough juice to run all the LEDs
  • 1 × 8mm 0.5W White LED The brightest one that satisfies the requirement ! 1 W is likely to heat a lot and smaller ones are kiddos

View all 19 components

  • Final Log!

    Rohit Gupta04/23/2014 at 05:59 0 comments

    I present to you my project the ARC ReactorX.

    It has 7 animations/modes to flaunt including a battery level indicator to tell you when to start conserving for the show!

    I would like to thank HackADay projects for such a nice platform. It really pretty cool and helps a lot while documenting and presenting things !

    After sticking it on a Tshirt it is suggested that you wear a black T over it or something that is not that closely knit. Keep the Tshirt Plain and simple!

    I even clicked a selfie :P

    Cheers,

    Rohit

  • Troubled by the OS.

    Rohit Gupta04/23/2014 at 05:49 0 comments

    Woah! It took me a while to figure out how to get the video from My Nokia Lumia device to Ubuntu after my Windows Laptop crashed. I tried a couple of ways like Bluetooth, Wifi,SD Card etc. Ubuntu (12.04LTS 64bit) does understand MTP natively. So, there is a way for Android 4.x which also uses MTP and it also works for WP8 (Not very reliably though)

    I have documented my way here.

    I got my video now and am editing it ! 

  • New way to wear it!

    Rohit Gupta04/17/2014 at 18:23 0 comments

    Since, i reported issues wearing the originally made strap-on reactor. I decided to sacrifice an old Tshirt and mount the 3 parts i.e.

    •  The control leaf
    • The battery 
    • PCB 

    On the tshirt itself. I used the trusted "Velcro" to do so. I am not that good at stitching but after a few needle pricks i was able to stitch the Velcro on the Tshirt.

    Below is the picture of all the 3 parts secured with velcro on the tshirt

  • ArcReactorX at ComicCon \m/

    Rohit Gupta04/16/2014 at 18:50 0 comments

    I went to comicCon with the ArcReactorX! 

    Did a Cosplay! Totally Rocked it! A lot of people were noticing it and asked me where did i buy it! I told them "I built it" They were like, "Oh Man! Cool! "

    Some did offered to buy it! But I ai'nt sellin here!

    It was also the field test of the ArcReactorX. I noticed two issues:

    • The mode change switch needs some debouncing code!
    • The straps not gonna work! It eventually starts to fall off. Plus is not very comfortable to wear ;)

    The positives were:

    • The battery lasts long!
    • The LED brightness is very good
    • Its damn cool!

  • The makeshift Strap On ArcReactorX

    Rohit Gupta04/16/2014 at 18:41 0 comments

    I made a quick strap that i can wear under the Tshirt.

    Plus added some coating to protect the copper!

    It has welcro and elastic on it.So that some of my friends can also wear it. The battery is on the back.

  • Firmware V2! All modes coded

    Rohit Gupta04/16/2014 at 18:11 0 comments

    I have written a new firmware that has the following modes:

    • The Epic startup sequence
    • All ON and middle too (Static)
    • Breathing LED mode
    • Flashing outer circle (knight rider )  (My favourite)
    • Loader type
    • alternative on/off
    • Morse Code for SOS
    • Morse Code for ILU ( Had some flash remaning :P ) with a special ring arrangement
    •  Battery life indicator

    There are some debounce issues ( duh! ) but i guess this will be good for comicCon as of now!

    Git Repo Updated

  • Github Repo updated with experimental code

    Rohit Gupta04/14/2014 at 19:15 0 comments

    Just added the experimental code to the repo!

  • The Startup Sequence Video

    Rohit Gupta04/13/2014 at 20:07 0 comments

    Added some background jet effect i talked about in the previous log! I will now make the other effects and find a suitable way to wear it.

  • The Awesome Startup Sequence

    Rohit Gupta04/13/2014 at 19:44 0 comments

    I thought a cool startup sequence. It is like a slowly pacing up knight rider and then the middle LED kind of turns on slowly (fade up) while the rest of them are off and then Bang they all light up. Looks super cool!

    Imagine the sound of a starting jet as its picking up Revs playing in the background!

    I did connect the middle LED to PWM pin. So, i can get smooth PWM !

  • Howdy, MSP430 ! All cool bro?

    Rohit Gupta04/12/2014 at 14:23 0 comments

    This is just to check if the microcontroller is happy in its place. No RESET line issues were detected. The power and programming interface worked fine.

    You can see the programming wires in the picture below. It was programmed using the MSP430 launchpad.

    I am using Energia inside which i run code which uses some of energia and some basic register level access at points where energia has not dug yet.

View all 12 project logs

  • 1
    Step 1

    Clone Repository

    git clone https://github.com/IndianTinker/ArcReactorX.git

  • 2
    Step 2

    Etch the PCB using Toner Transfer Method 

  • 3
    Step 3

    Solder the components ! Be careful with the TSSOP MSP430.

View all 7 instructions

Enjoy this project?

Share

Discussions

Craig Hissett wrote 10/26/2015 at 16:58 point

This is flipping brilliant!

Such a tidy way to do it, and great functionality too!

  Are you sure? yes | no

Mike Szczys wrote 05/07/2014 at 21:11 point
Nice job etching that board, looks great!

  Are you sure? yes | no

Rohit Gupta wrote 05/08/2014 at 13:26 point
Thanks Mike! Its great to hear that from you! :D

  Are you sure? yes | no

Pedro Lopes wrote 04/16/2014 at 01:01 point
Really Cool!

  Are you sure? yes | no

Eric Evenchick wrote 04/14/2014 at 16:22 point
Nice animations! That'd make a pretty unique wearable for Comic-Con

  Are you sure? yes | no

Similar Projects

Does this project spark your interest?

Become a member to follow this project and never miss any updates