How to make a 12 leaves Mechanical Irirs

Materials:

1 - bicycle chain......yes a bicycle chain, you'll seee what's for.
1 - copper sheet
1 - 15mm MDF board (20 x 20 cm will do)
1 - 3mm MDF board (20 x 20 cm will do) ( not on the pics)
1 CD tube case
And also some tools such as:

Bicicle chain tool
Drill
4 mm drillbit
130 mm Holesaw
75 mm Holesaw
Table saw or router table, or router, or dremel.
A blowtorch
Soldering wire and paste
scissors
A visegrip (recommended)
A Vise

You will also need a template file wich you can download from here, is a dwg (Autocad) file, you have to print it on a 1:1 scale.

Step 1 Getting some pins

Ok, so what the heck is the bicycle chain for? well, every iris leaf, has two pins, one of them is  a pivot pin, and the other is a travell pin, wich runs in a slot.
So, in this project we will use the bicycle chain pins, ;)

Now,what you need to do is to take your bicycle chain, and dissasembly it several times, in order to get 24 pins, as the images show.

I put my chain tool in the vise to have a better handling.

Every chain link is componed by two pins, two little rings, and two little flat pieces, we will only use the pins, but save the other little pieces, cause they can be very usefull, and you never know when you gonna need them.

Once you get the 24 pins, clean them up very well (i use alcohol), to get all the oil and grease out, and we are ready for the next step

Comments

[purgedsoul]

Thank you for the template. It's wonderful! I made a scaled one out of chipboard, 220 GSM vellum board; and round tootpicks as pins. It was fun building it. I am now planning on making another one out of straighten pvc pipes and aluminum soda can.

[kommodore]

Wow! Very nice done! show us some video of it, it looks awesome, im glad the templates help you!

Regards!

[purgedsoul]

Hi kommodore, sorry for the late reply, was busy with work, and tweaking the iris. Here's a video of it. Modified the iris, and put it in a pringles can.

[Hoggster]

Could you give me the link for the template of the leaves?

[1dog789]

epic XD

[steamlad8]

awsome :D can you spray paint the copper a more silver or iron look :)

[eduardoh]

What is the process and what software can I use to make my own templates for a project like this and for other projects?

I want to make some cards that have moving parts.

[thehitcheroo]

really nice. how do you get the template the correct size?

[Marsh]

This is very well done! Excellent detail! I'm going to try to make it from tempered hardboard and large enough to walk through.
The only change I would like to see is that you post the iris.dwg file (presumably that contains the templates you mentioned) in a compatible file format. Very few of us are likely to have autocad.

[kommodore]

You can also download this free dwg viewer from Autodesk.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=6703438&siteID=123112

[ManOfScience]

Viewer does not allow modification; Not even scaling, as far as I can tell.

But I'm sure a quick search would provide someone else's example in a friendlier format that you could start from for your larger, wooden version. There are lots of iris examples out there.

I'm sure you won't need to start from scratch, Marsh; When i eventually get around to making my own variation I'll be looking for YOUR work as my starting point, so don't forget to use an open format and post!

Great work though, Kommodore! Elegant & inspirational.

[kommodore]

try to scale it whe you print it, maybe there's an option there.

[garethllewelyn]

For Mac users there is a free app from the Apple app store to open.dwg files ;)

[jeowf]

It might not be able to work because i think that jwkoi's one didn't close simply because wood doesn't bend. I think that the reason that this one closes to such a small aperture is because the copper can bend. You may have a problem with tempered hardboard.

[pcooper2]

It's not the flexibility of the iris leaves that matters — it's their thickness. Ideally, the leaves should be infinitesimally thin.

[Marsh]

I think 1/8" will be thin enough for a three foot radius. I'll certainly post it if it's successful.

[Marsh]

Tempered hardboard has plenty of flex, and I'm pretty sure it will have to be sanded so the edges taper thinner. I'll post is an an Ible if successful.

[kommodore]

go ahead, and if it's going to be big enough to walk through there's no problem using the harboard, as long as it's no more than, let's say, 5 mm thickness, i think 3 mm would work great for the leaves.

about the dwg file, i could export it to pdf or something, but i can't assure it will maintain the original measures when you print it (it might be a problem just if you're going to use the 130 mm and 75 mm holesaws, but if you're going to use another tool to cut the rings, the original measures doesnt matter) so i'll try to export it to a pdf file.

[TwistedJack]

fantastic, this really helped me to better understand this
http://www.instructables.com/id/Paper-Mechanical-Iris/

[XTL]

what if you cut them out of old aluminium cans. can you solder onto those?
what about a glue ?

[wsing]

so nice

[brettr1974]

Looks great, well done.

[directx1222]

How would i go about making one of these - but with a 3 meter diameter- it's meant to be an awesome door

[im3733]

Use REALLY BIG pieces of aluminum...probably thicker than he did, for stability, especially if it will be vertical. Other than that, just scale everything up, though for the pins you might want to do something a little different, like make a jig, like he mentioned, to help with the positioning.

Your biggest problem would be wear and tear on the solder joints, as well as friction from the weight. Maybe re-engineer the pins to go into the leaf, and sit within a bearing ring, that will help with the friction, however, weight will still be a big issue....as well as finding something powerful enough to open it. It's gonna take a lot torque at that size.

[raiderdk]

That so cool, definitelly i'll try make one soon.

I see another way to build mechanical viewing your video in youtube, this one http://youtu.be/y1tq3ISKg_g , is a very simple cardboard test. It looks like the runners slots has to be in leaves side instead ring side, maybe that make bulding easier and faster.

I don't know how it will looks using wood or metal, even maybe it won't works, so I ask experts their opinion about :),

[eielofview]

Awesome Instructable! I do wonder if you could use pop rivets instead of the chain pins.. hmm..

[kommodore]

yes you can, you can use nails, a piece of copper wire, etc, there's a lot of options, and pop rivets are one good option too, as long as you can weld them, there's no problem.

[general-Insano]

or if you are really good at doing rivets the old fashioned way...though welding seems to be the most stress free

[eiloxcn]

It's amazing!

[DaiVrath]

How thick is the copper sheet? I'm thinking about trying to do this with stainless steel sheet, and I'd really like it to be able to close all of the way.

[kommodore]

The copper sheet is 0,1 mm thick, (about 0,0039 inches)

[Aethereal]

if you have them, a small set of tin snips are great here, just be careful to use the proper pair (i.e. don't use left cutting snips to cut right, you'll end up with nasty edges and useless copper)

[asegade]

Good job !
When you close the iris the pins running in the slots don't get out of them? Thanx for sharing your work :)

[kommodore]

Thanks

There's a range of leaf sizes in wich, the pins move through a path that's within the ring body, from the open position untill the closed position as you can see in this pic.

[casper]

Great instructable! When I opened your iris.dwg file I only got the template for the bottom and top plates, not the leaves. Should the leaves have been in that file too?

[kommodore]

Ok, i upload a new file, try that one, it has the 12 leaves arranged into a 20 x 30 cm area, so you can print them and glue them to a 20x30 cm copper sheet.

[kommodore]

curious, the leaf template should be there too, nexto to both rings, try zoom it out, i will upload another one anyway.

[jeowf]

I can't wrap my mind around how this awesome instructable works. Do you have any pictures of the bottom of the project when the iris is closed?

[kommodore]

Here's some pics from the bottom, but it looks the same as it looks in the front, but here they are.

[qwertyboy]

Not sure what exactly you would do with an iris like this, but still very neat!