April 30, 2022
Description
Fully functional mechanical iris with 5 blades and smooth operation. Learn how a mechanical iris is working by printing and assembling this iris. No supports are needed to print the parts, but some pins must be glued to the blades. A detailed print and assembly description is available as PDF document.
The print and assembly guide document can be downloaded here: Dreamtime24_Mechanical_Iris_assembly_guide_Rev01.pdf.
I also have tried to design a "glueless" iris which still needs no supports for the 3D print. This is possible when the holes in the actuator ring are pins and the blades contain holes. But this is a difficult setup, as the pins in the actuator ring must not exceed the thickness of the blades. The pins tend to slip out of the holes. Therefore the design of this thing is better.
Have fun printing and assembling this interesting item.
Printer:
FLSUN Super Racer
Rafts:
No
Supports:
No
Resolution:
0.2 mm layer height
Infill:
20 %
Filament:
Verbatim PLAblack, white, red, yellow
Notes:
No supports are needed.
Glue large pins to the blades
A large pin must be glued to each blade opposite the existing pin.
Iris design with Blender
With some effort I managed to design the iris with Blender. Numerous test prints were required to achieve the final smooth operation of the iris. Now I have a lot of experience with tolerances in Blender.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial
Dreamtime24
