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first its sphincters.... now its monsters... did we not get our medication this morning...
on a serious note.. I drew up your dxf in solidworks.. and I am really impressed with what you have there.. but I can see how you would have problems as the tolerances are so close.. it is a great job to get it to the point you are..
m
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Sweet!
I don't know if it would improve your design, but you could include half-lap joints on the ends of your linkages. That would cutout one layer of thickness in your final assembly.
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I think gears are the way to go
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If you are going to use gears then I think an obvious accessory would be a submarine hatch type handle!
Mike
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You can eliminate the linkage and half the pivots, as well as increase mechanical advantage, by using slots in the outer ring. You can also eliminate the bearings by using the inner ring as a pivot.
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ohh now there's an idea. If I am thinking correctly, the slots would need to be curved as the pivots on the end of the leaves travel in a arc, but that shouldn't be too hard to calculate.
definately going to play around with that.
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Does the old saying "too many chiefs and not enough indians" seem fitting here? lol
I like that someone can put out an idea and others jump in to improve it.
Referring to Mitch's idea of the gears let me ask, would you want some type of acuator motor that only turns the gear a bit then when you hit the power source again it goes in the opposite direction? opening, closing?
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Chris, the slots do not have to be curved. They do not even have to be angled. The angle just provides a "wedge" to increase mechanical advantage in both directions.
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ahh ok, I think I get it. I guess I was still thinking in terms of a fixed pivot with the substrate being stationary, but you are talking about the whole slotted disc rotating?
interesting. I'll have to rethink the structure that holds the inner ring stationary.
...or, mabye even more interesting let the inner ring move and have the iris rotate as it open and closes.
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If you were just concerned about manufacturing costs and material usage a slotted outer ring design would probably win. I have to say that I'm drawn to the linkages from an aesthetic/moving sculpture point of view point. Either way, I especially like all of the interacting curves in your design.
If you go with the slotted outer ring idea, you could use arced slots instead of straight slots. I've seen this technique used in other applications, but I can't remember why it was used. Maybe the arcs are intended to maintain a constant mechanical advantage throughout the movement?