PLASTIC LIVING HINGES that NEVER BREAK with 3D Printing!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 เม.ย. 2024
- Does a 3D printed plastic living hinge need to be thick? Can 3D printed plastic living hinges last for hundreds or even thousands of cycles?
It's a common belief that to make a 3D printed living hinge you need to make it thick and the plastic hinge will only last for a handful of cycles.
In this video we will challenge these common beliefs and show how to make a living hinge that can last for hundreds, and possibly even thousands of cycles.
Living hinge bend radius, material, thickness, and 3D printing parameters are the four main parameters in plastic living hinge design.
We will explore these in detail using a small case as an example design.
By the end of this video you will learn some basic design principles and guidelines so that you can design living hinges that will last for a long time.
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This episode is NOT sponsored. Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something we'll receive a small commission.
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Timecodes
0:00 - Intro
0:32 - Small Case
1:19 - Hinge Bend Radius
2:07 - Hinge Material
2:53 - Hinge Thickness
4:23 - 3D Printing Parameters
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These hinges are always made from polypropylene for a reason. You can bend polypropylene many thousands of times and it’ll never break. All flip top products and food clips are polypropylene. It’s actually ok to print you just need to put a layer of polypropylene box tape over your build sheet. Polypropylene only sticks to polypropylene.
Polypropylene is difficult to get to stick, even to tape. I found that the tape doesn’t work all that well and comes off the bed, I have had best results printing on the stock build surface on an ender 3 pro which is the magnetic one, I have no idea what it is made of though, I think I saw that it may be polycarbonate.
@@conorstewart2214 I’ve never had that trouble to be fair but maybe not all polypropylene filaments are made the same. You can get polypropylene beds.
I bought some for that reason, but I haven't gotten to using it yet. For some reason I thought nylon was the right material. It was WAY better than PLA, but it's still too fragile. Then I found out about PP. Maybe when I'm done with my current print I'll give PP a try.
@@awilliams1701 PP isn’t a very popular printing material because it warpy. It’s a bit soft and shiny but very durable and can withstand high fatigue hence it’s use in this sort of continuous bending application.
@@bonjipoo yeah that's more or less what I saw about it. I do find it odd because temp wise it seems to be very close to PLA. Much easier than nylon that's for sure. I actually discovered that when the printer says it can do 300, it can't. I found 295 was the limit. 300 will cause a thermal runaway detection.
If your hinge is 0.2 but you print at 0.1mm layer height, you can get 2 layers in that 0.2mm - can also add ironing which might meld the layers together better with heat transfer
I haven't tried this yet, but definitely need to in the future.
@@EngineersGrow that would be why the attempt at 0.3mm failed as well. Your layer height is 0.2mm. Meaning you have to go in multiples of 0.2mm.
Try to increase the flow also for bridges
Very good video, loved all the demonstration prints showing off the iterative design process
Glad you liked it!
It also shows the reality of 3D printing: it takes a number of failures to get to every success.
You can use Sharpie supports. What you do is you reduce support distance to zero and enable solid support roof and insert an automated print pause right after support roof. Then during the print pause you go in and you paint with a felt tip alcohol marker over the support roof. It should just release, if it doesn't, you can encourage it with a little alcohol.
I also think the hinge may want a fillet or bevel around where it connects to the body, since it's the part most likely to break and it's better to disperse the stress there, and you don't actually want the hinge to bend there but across the rest of the length evenly.
Great point about using marker between support and hinge!
@@EngineersGrow Another favourite support trick of mine is reducing support extrusion width to about 65% nominal, or flow to about 50%. Basically ruthless underextrusion. This way you can have comprehensive support geometry but supports that can be broken off the most fragile of prints, very brittle support. Less waste material as well. Had to make use of this extensively just the other week to print myself a variant of the RollingSloth RS4 gaming mouse in FDM with lightweight HIPS, which was obviously conceived as an SLS model.
I love that idea
@@Fly_High_FPV Can't claim credit, saw it on Hackaday. The person who originated it also made themselves a jank toolhead attachment which would actually paint in support separator programmatically, though they wrote the G-code for the test print by hand. Could be worth a better tool design and a post processing script you can just attach in a slicer. Also worth exploring some sort of colourless coating, to avoid marring the print.
@@SianaGearz thx i'll check it out
Great job on this video! I'm starting to learn CAD and this will be awesome for some items I want to make in the near future! Thank you for the info!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the great inputs!
Glad it was helpful!
Tip for your support material issue.
Pre-print support blocks out of PETG.
Pause before bridging.
Apply glue stick to PETG support block.
Slide PETG block under hinge area.
Resume printing.
Remove PETG easily.
It shouldn't need much adhesion to the build plate as it's going to be wedged between 2 parts of a print.
Great idea!
Sounds similar to others that said they apply a marker over the support material and then resume print.
@@EngineersGrow So many good tips here! Thanks for making this video!
This is a great channel and you are great at explaining things :) keep up the good work!
Thank you!
1. Creat a slot to insert a thin leather strap or something with similar sturdiness 2. Print pause at the height of the strap width. Insert strap, continue printing. 3. Dont worry about the leather hinge to break.
Great idea! Using multiple materials definitely opens the door to many more options.
Could do a multi material print at that point. Print the TPU hinge, then switch filaments to PETG and print the case on top of the bridge.
Print a basic hinge on the bed. Do this method with the slot, make the slot 0.1 high, place the hinge you printed earlier in the print when it's half way there, let it glue your hinge in by printing directly onto the hinge.
Depending on the inserted material you may need to also stick a layer of painter's tape or apply some glue for the filament to be able to stick to it, especially if the inserted material has a large area and bridging alone is not enough to cover it.
Pretty nice video, keep this awesome work coming, I subscribed without any doubt
Thanks, will do!
This is a fantastic video and something i struggled with in the past. Good work!
Thank you!
You *could* spend a lot of energy on part design and build prep, and maybe get a decent enough living hinge. But that's an exercise better left to processes like SLA, in my opinion.
I think it'd be better to leverage one of the biggest advantages that FDM has over most other additive technologies and just build the hinge with a more compliant material. So long as the materials are directly compatible, all you need to do is include a filament change cycle in your g-code, to switch to a harder material after one or two layers. Or don't even worry about that much if you have a dual hotend setup.
Great point!
Или тупо использовать петли без изгиба. Они вечные и работают так же хорошо как тысячи лет назад.
Awesome videos man! I just watched all of them. Please keep making more! We really enjoy them! Do you have more topics you plan to cover?
Awesome! Will do. Planning to make a few more on living hinges and then move on to the next topic. There are several topics I have in mind. Not sure which one will do next yet.
@@EngineersGrow Your channel is an inspiration to me! :) Looking forward to seeing your next videos!
amazing channel! just started design my own 3d models, those videos will come in handy
Great to hear!
Nice video. Informative and short to the point.
Thank you!
You should read about stress concentrators. If you print your belt vertically, but add a rounding where it attaches to the cap, then the belt will behave as predicted and bend in an arc, without undue stress. Avoid 90 degree angles on connection places.
I'll be diving deeper into this in a future video!
Glad I found this channel. Your audio is getting better too.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad to hear audio is getting better.
Nice vid. Thanks for sharing 👍🏼
You bet!
Hey I learned something cool. Thank you for going through 300 cycles of that. Also for printing out something you know wouldn’t work but wanted to show for testing purposes. Dedication. Subscriber +1
Welcome! Great, good to know that showing iterations is helpful.
great video! I use PP a lot to make prints like this, it's kind of hard to print, but with your tips, it will help a lot!
What are the biggest challenges you face with printing living hinges from PP?
PolyPropylene is the ultimate material for living hinges, but I haven't tried it yet because it's hard to print.
@@EngineersGrow Adhesion between layers is a bit complicated, but I recently started using Braskem FL105PP and it surprised me, it printed well even on an open printer, but the only glue thats work it's Magigoo PPGF.
Good video. It is important to know what succeeded but also what had failed.
Absolutely! Thank you.
this reminds me of the video I watched on the new methods for multimaterial printing. Good stuff.
What's the video?
I'd like to get into multi-material printing in the future.
New approach that I’ve not seen before. Nice 👍
Glad you liked it!
This is very interesting and innovative!
Thank you!
Nice! Makes me want to try living hinges again.
Have you tried using ironing? It might help reduce some of the stresses.
I was just thinking that.
Not for living hinges.
I tried ironing on another experimental project but clogged by heatbreak bad enough that I had to replace it. So I haven't used ironing again, but hope to in the future.
Great work
Thank you!
Cool stuff, was just thinking about this the other day when thinking about how to recycle the plastic from plastic bottles, mainly the caps and the handles from bigger ones. It seems to be just a flexible plastic that deforms easy but goes back to shape like nothing happened, probably why it was used for the handle, a lot more comfortable on the hands, and was thinking it would be the perfect plastic for living hinges without knowing to much about them or their design. So i tried grinding up the bottlecaps in a blender but after opening the lid, the fumes that came off that stuff... worse then ABS and im not senstive to nauxious odours but i wouldnt spend anymore time then i had in a room of with this stuff floating in the air. So i dont know about recyling that stuff without proper percautions. Its a form of petg if i recall, but even PLA can vary wildly in properties so i dont think its the same PETG youd find on a roll for 3d printing, although i could be mistaken i havent printed with printer PETG yet.
Thanks for sharing!
3:50 Did you try the sharpie interference layer trick for zero offset supports?
Since the hinge is only one layer I'm not sure how well it would work, but it'd be interesting if you tested it out!
I haven't yet, but maybe it will be worth it if I won't figure out a way to do it without pausing the print then
Care to explain this trick?
@@Mawyman2316 I haven't tried it but other commenter explained it, basically you place a pause command at the end of the support print with a solid interface and cover that surface with a sharpie or similar permanent marker before continuing the print, that will make it much easier to separate, also you can use alcohol to separate it.
A .4 nozzle can print as small as .1mm on any axis when using the right slicer setting. In Prusa Slicer its Arachne mode is what you need to enable. This allows the program to vary the thickness of the line quite a bit during printing making thin walls possible to print instead of being ignored. (Cura has this regardless as they developed it). Basically always use this mode as there is almost no reason to use the old way of slicing anymore.
Thank for sharing this! Need to try it out.
Had issues in the past with printing smaller extrusion widths than nozzle size. But that was some time ago when was I was using Simplify3D.
@@EngineersGrow you can print walls as small as the layer height normally without any special tools. That is because the "bead" that is created when printing is that size already regardless if its putting down just 1 wall or several. Its when you start getting smaller then the layer height that things start to go wrong in the slicing programs. So .1mm is the smallest a .4 can do, technically it can get to .05 but bed leveling has to be perfect, so in most cases that will fail. .1mm layers with Ironing (I use Cura), can make rounded or angled pieces on the Z axis be almost as smooth as resin can get.
very good presentation, subscribed
Welcome aboard!
very educational good information!
making the boxes themselves is also a challenge,
fitting well together is quite a thing!
and huuu oh yes, most of them/us only print with PLA
Healthy and Friendly Greetings from the Netherlands!
Rob
Greetings!
Thanks for the videos
You bet
Great video 👍. Subscribed!
Welcome!
Great video. Thanks
Glad you liked it!
AMAZING VIDEO!!!
Thank you. I really needed this insight for a new project.
Clicked that 🔔
You're welcome! New video coming soon.
very good and informative video!
Thank you!
so what length was the hinge for the PLA hinge? or what is a good length?
12.25mm was the length of the hinge when flat, with a bend radius of 3.9mm.
The length of the hinge is calculated using the circumference of a circle formula, C=2*pi*r.
The hinge is only half of a circle in this example.
nice info and video.
Thank you!
You could make the box out of a stiff filament and leave a slot to slide a more flexible hinge into
That's a really good idea!
@@EngineersGrow the slot could be flush to the inside bottom with a little lip recessed into the top edge of the slot, the hinge would just need a little bump to snap into place without an adhesive that might degrade the bendy filament... then the hinge could be replaced if it breaks.
You might even be able to use raw, unprinted filament as a hinge, or even a strip of soda bottle held in the slot with a pin or dot of heat from a soldering iron, a strip of soda bottle would make a fantastic "piano hinge" type of connection on a large box
It's not just only about the design,but the material also.
Yep!
Not being g a jerk, but I figured this out without all the tests. Actually on accident. A failed print that was one layer thick was very flexible when I scraped it off the bed. I instantly knew that hinged designs could use this in an actual part. So thanks for doing the hard work and sharing this. Great video, thumbs up for this one.
Nice, nothing better then getting to the correct answer by accident without all of the additional testing! Glad to hear you liked it.
Looks like you need to make a slight adjustment to the extrusion multiplier? Your lines aren't fully connecting?
Are you referring to the top or bottom surface of the print?
I've calibrated the extrusion multiplier so that dimensions are more accurate.
@@EngineersGrow 1:145 and 3:11 seem to show it well in the inside surfaces and the hinge. Maybe it's just personal preference, but I kinda try to make my lines form a solid surface and not have gaps. But if it's affecting dimensional accuracy, then go with what works.
Print the first two layers to the thickness of the hinge in a flexible material then swap over to PLA or main material??? Never printed with different materials layer over layer but might work? Thanks for the video, enjoyed it!
I don't have a dual extruder printer, so don't know from experience.
From what I've seen different materials don't bond well layer over layer. However, I've seen people get good results by adding locking features between the different materials along the same layer to forces the two materials to grip each other.
That's super awesome
Glad to hear you liked it!
You might try the bridged hinge again, I'm guessing you run the default setting of lower the extrusion factor on bridging, which creates gaps on first bridged layer. What if you instead increased flow factor to above 1?
(I still think printing on bed in the right orientation will result in strongest hinge)
If you increase flow you get push-droop. Might be worth a try but i don't think it will be cohesive.
Higher flow might help with bonding the hinge to the case, but my guess is not by much. I do want to figure out how to solve this problem though.
But why? Making the bend radius as large as possible is the right answer, and that worked great. So why try going back to make something work that didn't have any advantage over the existing solution?
@@BrightBlueJim you seem to have decided that every project that can possibly need a hinge will be a flat box :p
How about doing a mix material print? Start with the hinge at the bottom and use TPU for the first layer and then swap out tpu for pla for the remaining layers. You get rigid box with the PLA and hinge that is less likely to fail with the TPU
Yes, that's a great idea! I'm not able to print multi-material parts right now, but hopefully in the future.
Because in this case the swap is at a layer, you can do this by simply pausing the print and swapping the filament. But yea printing with a multimaterial system would be the best way.
@@nbdyfamous7088 That might work for some materials. My understanding is that different materials do not stick well to each other, so they can separate really easy.
@@EngineersGrowTrue! TPU and PLA work excellently for this application. PETG doesn't adhere well to other materials.
I so want an IDEX 3d printer for my next one. I've had so many challenges I think that could be solve with a second material for support. I tried a 3d printer that switched filaments but it didn't work well for me.
Same here. I used to have a dual extruder mounted on the same rail and it didn't work well
It appears typically object bought are designed with being closed in mind. Is it possible to design a hinge that has a memory to be closed most of the time rather than open? Great video!
One option is to close the lid, gently heat up the hinge with a lighter, let the hinge cool. After this the lid will be held in closed position.
Just a small amount of heat is needed, possibly applied several times not to overheat the hinge. That's how I got the case in the thumbnail to stay in the half-closed position.
Injection molded living hinges often has small features that force the cap towards closed or fully open positions. These features are small and are hard to 3D print.
For that i'd make it a print in place model with the box closed, on it's side, so the hinge is a vertical
I can now fulfill a dream of fishing-line dental floss container.
I noticed you did look at the breaking strain on the filament for designing the strain on the hinge, but that's not the right number. If you instead use the elastic limit (~2% for PLA), the hinge will only deform elastically and will last many, many order of magnitude longer too.
Yes, staying in the elastic region is the way to go for hinges to last longer.
Congrats on getting to 300 cycles on a thin hinge, and thanks for sharing. But why not take advantage of 3D printing pros like being able to print chains/interlocking mechanisms that don't suffer material stress?
That's a great point! My focus was just on making a living hinge work. But I can see how an interlocking mechanism can be far more superior to a living hinge.
Hello, I'm an Argentinean teacher who is having trouble designing a piece like this for a project I want to undertake with my 10-year-old students. I haven't been able to design what I need, but this type of flat boxes would be ideal. Do you have an .stl file of any model available that I could use as a reference? Thank you very much.
Hi. Here's a link. Let me know if it's not the one you were looking for. Sorry for the late response.
drive.google.com/file/d/1aGunmXurbb5UACdE3vE5_n_gSCLyuAWq/view?usp=drive_link
@@EngineersGrow Thank you very much! The file is very useful to me. I was looking for the one from the bigger box, but with this one, I can start working. Once again, thank you very much for the generosity of sharing your work. Greetings from Argentina.
@@carlosvidal5635 Glad to hear it was helpful!
Here's the link to the larger case.
drive.google.com/file/d/1oo9i3b8CVVbxoK5HCl8hHITJ4OikwEez/view?usp=drive_link
Maybe easier to only 3dprint the box and use short filament cuts to connect the parts (design the holes for the filament to connect) than you can use exotic material for the hinge:)
That's a great idea! There are lots of options once you don't make the hinge and case from the same material.
Shouldn't Arachne make your hinges thinner if you print them upright?
I haven't experimented with, but probably should. Not sure if the hinge quality will be good based on physics of how the layers are laid down when extrusion width is smaller than nozzle diameter.
you have an onshape file for this so I can try to print it?
I don't have on shape files. However, here's a link to the step file that you should be able to import.
drive.google.com/file/d/1aGunmXurbb5UACdE3vE5_n_gSCLyuAWq/view?usp=share_link
@@EngineersGrow i printed it in petg, it came out nicely, now i will test it to see how well it holds up. thx
Superb
Thanks!
Great thank you! please share stl file
what is this 3d software? 4:51?
PrusaSlicer 2.5.0
I would imagine that ironing the surface of early layers with multiple directions of extruder lines would further increase the durability of the living hinge, as it would bind the extruded material against the grain of the layer lines. Anyone wanna get on a post processing plugin that hacks gcode to do this?
I wonder if this can be achieved with breaking the model into multiple bodies. Maybe it will force the slicing software to iron the top surface of each body.
Weld a TPU hinge to PLA using PLA rivets or sandwich a TPU part between 2 PLA parts.
You are not unhinged!
As an alternative solution try to design a hinge with piece of 1.75mm filament as a stift.
you can make thinner walls than your nozzle width you only loose some surface quality, 0.3 will be no problem,
either way 0.45 is still more than you need for a a 0.4 nozzle, you already get optimal great adhesion at 4.15- 4.25
I appreciate the time and effort that you took testing each of the versions. Thank you very much for sharing this information.
Glad it was helpful!
If you have a idex printer, you can use the dual material print idea from the printing general. The case can be hard plastic while the hinge can be soft plastic.th-cam.com/video/klEgNN2AL4g/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for sharing the link. My goal is to eventually get an IDEX.
Like us, even living hinges die. I want immortal hinges. Immortal
haha, unfortunately I can't deliver immortal hinges.
What a science!
You could try crinkling it. Print it like WWWWWW .... this effectively increased the radius of the hinge, so it won't bend as much. Normal living hinges do not do this because it'd be costly and pointless, but it might work with this less flexible material.
Good point. I can see how that can work especially if you have the room for it.
@@EngineersGrowCool vid btw i appreciate the science
Trimmer line. Just buying it in big spools and printing such things.
I heard about this before, but haven't tried it. Should try it sometime.
@@EngineersGrow It just PA6, brightly tinted, prints the same, need to dry, a correction for the diameter is also needed, but this is several times cheaper than just any material, if you buy 3+ kg spools.
I think we've reached a point where it's propably easier to just print a normal hinge with a metal wire
Looking forward to the day when everyone can have a metal 3D printer in their garage!
I don't know what leads you to this conclusion. You think it's better to have two printed pieces and a metal pin, than a single printed part? You might look at what industry does - they minimize the number of parts wherever they can.
@@BrightBlueJim indeed, but it's all a mattter of scale
if you make 10-20 parts it is cheaper to go with a simple, proven design, especially if development would take disproportional effort compared to the outcome
in industry you have millions of parts where 0.1 gram of plastic saved on a single part makes a huge difference
you can afford to put much more time in to development as the payoff is significantly greater
2:38 Just tilt the printer about45°. Done ;)
:)
You should hire Tupperware. They don't get it reliably either.
You are doing even better.
Thanks!
I made it with pet filament(bottle plastics )
thanks for sharing!
@@EngineersGrow👍
Use flexible filament! The hinge or the whole thing.
Yes, that's an option. Although the case is not that firm then.
Have you seen lasercut living hinges? MDF is as rigid as can be
I've seen them but don't have have any experience with them. I design mostly for clean room environments, so MDF is not an option.
Coca Cola shall never be allowed to watch this video!
lots of cycles when fresh
I can't imagine a worse material for a living hinge than PLA... I'd stick with nylon, tpu or PP.
Regular PLA, Yes! Tough PLA stretches about 8X more before yielding compared to regular PLA. So tough PLA a great easy to print alternative to regular PLA.
@@EngineersGrow Interesting. I gave up on PLA for much of anything a while back, maybe I'll have to look at some of these new blends.
It's really unfair and uncontrolled comparison that your flat-on-bed example was given a much greater bend radius than the previous 2 predecessors. You should show examples of those first 2 if they were also granted a greater bend radius
Good point. I should have gone back and re-did everything with the same bend radius.
Normally I'd be rooting for metric, but your case is 1 x 1 inch 😄
I have never had anything with a plastic hinge like that which the hinge did not break before a month of use, that means opening and closing it at least a few times per day over that month All flip top products are polypropylene? Then no, polypropylene hinges do not bend many thousands of times before breaking, more like a few dozen at best.
It seems like you made like 5 before we even got to hinges
Agree, next time should shorten up that section.
I hate bending hinges so much. The worst one i have ever seen was on the glovebox door of a car. who the hell thought it was a good idea to make that bending plastic
Interesting.
One word, as others have said... PP
Yep!
Don't use PLA. Use SBC, SBS, or PP.
PP is definitely the best. It's on my list to print.
or you could do a mechanical one XD
Use origami hinge.
make join
The answer is use polypropylene.
Yes, PP is the best for living hinges
*laughs in FPLA*
the title says "NEVER BREAK", you can break these without even trying
I hear what you're saying and wish it would be possible to create things truly never break. Unfortunately in the real world everything breaks, no matter how strong it is.
@@EngineersGrow so why are you lying in the title? Why do you think it's okay to clickbait? Are you just gonna ignore me now? LOL
Duct tape
good tips... but it is fugly.
They do break....everything breaks. This is false advertising and I will press the issue if you sell them. I am evil and proud. Please hate me. 🎉
Haha, yes everything breaks eventually!
@@EngineersGrow just the nature of nature, at least in this rendition of physics.
That’s a bold statement
Hello, we want to send you a laser engraver to try. Please let me know if you are interested.
Never? That really is a very long time! Got news for you NOTHING lasts for ever... NOTHING!
Yeah, I hear you!