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

Step 2: Cutting the Leaves

Now let's make some leaves!

Ok, first print the leaf template, and glue it to the copper sheet.
Now cut the leaves!

Regular scissor will do the job (Remember, this copper sheet is 0,1 mm thick)

Once you get them all cut, remove the paper, and we are ready for the next step!

Step 3: Soldering the Pins

Ok, now comes the fun part, we will solder two pins in every leaf, you must be carefull of where you place the pin, you have to guide yourself using the leaf template

I had no time to make a jig to precicely position the pin in every leaf, so i did it "by eye", anyway, we dont need surgical precision for this one.

Now, in case you're wondering ¿how do i solder those little things? i'll show you how i do it.

-First, i fix my visegrip on the vise
-Then i fix the leaf with the pin in position, in the visegrip
-Then you have to apply some soldering paste (flux), be generous.
-Heat it with the torch, just enough to get the paste melted
-Then, cut a piece of soldering wire, about 15 mm long, and twist it in a "U" like shape
-Then, wrap the wire around the pin base.
-And finally, heat everything untill the solder gets melted, use a soft flame, there's no need for exesive heat.

Do all that, and 20 minutes later you will have your 12 copper leaves set, ready to go!

Step 4: Making the Rings

Now lets make the two rings.

First, print the rings template, and glue them in to the mdf boards.

-The ring with the runners, is for the 15 mm MDF borad, and the ring with the 12 holes, is for the 3 mm MDF.

-Then cut them with the holesaw

-Sand all the edges

-Drill the holes ( 4 mm holes)

-Cut the runners in the table saw (or router table, or with a dremmel, etc) i set the cut depth to 10 mm.

And that's all, now lets go to the assembly part!

Step 5: Assembly It!

Ok! so now we have our 12 copper leaves set, and two mdf rings, let´s put them all together.

First, take the cd tube case.
Then put the 15 mm MDF ring on it
Then put the first leaf, with the tracking pin in a slot (the tracking pin is the one tha's a little offset, the other one is the pivot pin)
Then put the second leaf under the first one
Put the 3rd leaf under the 2nd......and so, untill you get the 12 leaves set up.

the put the 3 mm mdf ring on top, make all the pins fit with their respective hole (you can use some stick, or screwdriver to help) and YOU ARE READY TO GO!

Lets see a video of the iris in action! i must said this one works like a charm, opens and close very smooth.

Comments

[ElImprovisador]

This looks amazing. I'm thinking of trying this out on a smaller scale for a ring box. I was curious about two things though: 1. When the Iris is fully closed are the chain pins on the bottom of the blades pulled out of the running board? I'm concerned that the middle of the iris will have the pins sticking out and scratch into the ring. 2. I was also wondering if you think adding a flat piece of metal on the bottom of the underside pin and channeling out an "L" groove in the runner board would help keep the pins in place in the event that the box gets flipped over or do you think that would be unnecessary with a proper cover on the mechanism?

[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.

[rhoula]

The video is not available no more here on instructables because youtube changed the embed code.

If you want to watch the video follow this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3UbzXwtLGU

[kommodore]

Very nice!

[OpIvy]

Love this and think it is amazing. I made one myself out of cardboard.
A small adjustment that I think could make the Iris even better is making the pins smaller, not as high as they currently are. They would instead look something like in this picture I included.

[Vj4509]

Hi,
Thank you uploading such a wonderful informative article.
I want to make the project similar to iris bowl with petel like opening on outer side.
Please suggest.

Thanks

[coffeestains]

Will this work if the pin is glued to the Leaves with some Super Glue???

[scirx]

With experience in other projects, super glue will make a fairly strong chemical bond, but cannot be relied upon for durability as the soldering makes a very solid mechanical connection.

[JoshuaH159]

is it possible to use pieces of heavy wire instead of bike chain pins?

[scirx]

Yes, except that, in other projects I have done, lifetime of the device will probably be shortened as the pins are hardened.

[jrf47]

Hello

How do you compute the position of the 2 pivots on the blades and how the shape of the blades are related to the size of the iris? Thank for your very nice work.

[plenhart1]

I don't have autocad and the online viewer isn't great. Any chance you'd post a pdf of the schematic?

Great work on this by the way!

[PabloF8]

Im checking your dwg files. The exterior circle is supposed to be 130mm, but I see 123mm. The inner circle is correct with 75mm.

Any idea about this?

[dhazelwood]

How do I scale this up for a 2ft windows?

[MauricioP49]

Hi kommodore, I was wondering how long it took you to make it and how difficult you found it. I was planning on making one that can be ran with a motor. Thanks!

[manuelmasc]

Hi MauricioP49. It may seems difficult, but you will notice by yourself that is not! I really enjoyed building it and it took me just 2 hour and a half (you could build that in less time if you don't spend a lot of time like me checking and rechecking everything in order to make it as perfect as possible ahaha).

[kiel814]

Is there a trick to make the iris reach a fully closed position. I have been looking at several different designs and most of them seem to leave a tiny opening when closed. This one does not seem to have that issue. Any explanation?

[kommodore]

Hi, it will depend on the thickness of the leaves, when closing the iris, the leaves overlap with each other. In this case, the thickness of each leaf is 0,1 mm. When fully closed, the 12 leaves sum 1,2mm thick in the center. This causes the leaves to bend inward a little bit. So the thicker the blades, more force will be needed to bend the leaves in order to overlap with each other, sometimes making it impossible to fully close after some point.

Cheers!