{"id":141,"date":"2008-11-19T09:20:28","date_gmt":"2008-11-19T09:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/141-creating-hinges-and-moving-parts.html"},"modified":"2014-07-03T16:42:21","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T16:42:21","slug":"creating-hinges-and-moving-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts","title":{"rendered":"Creating hinges and moving parts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There were some questions on the forum lately about printing working hinges and what kind of tolerances you need to make them work. Some test objects were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/forum\/index.php?t=msg&amp;goto=1983%20\">uploaded by pzich<\/a> and we&#8217;re currently printing those to see how they work. <\/p>\n<p>While we&#8217;re waiting for them, we thought we&#8217;d share a few insights that we gleaned from some test objects that we already have on our tables here<\/p>\n<p><b>1. Flexible hinges<\/b><br \/>Instead of making a mechanical hinge, you can use White Strong &amp; Flexible to make flexible hinges. Here are two example: one using a &#8216;harmonica&#8217; structure. In this case the material is about 0.5 mm thick:<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"serendipity_image_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/flex-hinge1_s1.jpg\"><!-- s9ymdb:295 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"91\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/flex-hinge1_s1-150x150.jpg\"><\/a><a class=\"serendipity_image_link\" href=\"\/blog\/uploads\/flex-hinge1b_s_2.jpg\"><!-- s9ymdb:300 --><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/flex-hinge1b_s_31.jpg\" class=\"serendipity_image_link\"><!-- s9ymdb:306 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"92\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/flex-hinge1b_s_31-150x150.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\"><\/a><a class=\"serendipity_image_link\" href=\"\/blog\/uploads\/flex-hinge1b_s_2.jpg\"><!-- s9ymdb:300 --><\/a><a class=\"serendipity_image_link\" href=\"\/blog\/uploads\/flex-hinge1b_s.jpg\"><!-- s9ymdb:296 --><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Another approach is to make a long, flat piece of plastic which can bend. The material here is about 0.5 mm thick as well:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/eos-hinge11.jpg\" class=\"serendipity_image_link\"><!-- s9ymdb:292 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"73\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/eos-hinge11-150x150.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/eos-hinge21.jpg\" class=\"serendipity_image_link\"><!-- s9ymdb:293 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"73\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/eos-hinge21-150x150.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\"><\/a><a class=\"serendipity_image_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/eos-hinge31.jpg\"><!-- s9ymdb:294 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"73\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/eos-hinge31-150x150.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>2. Moving parts<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This &#8216;GearCard&#8217; was printed as a single model in White Strong &amp; Flexible. You can make moving parts by modeling air gaps between the gear and the axis. Although our minimum tolerance is about 0.1mm, we do suggest that you keep gaps above 0.25mm to be safe (these measures apply to White Strong &amp; Flexible only).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/GearCard_s1.jpg\" class=\"serendipity_image_link\"><!-- s9ymdb:298 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"74\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/GearCard_s1-150x150.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/GearCard2_s1.jpg\" class=\"serendipity_image_link\"><!-- s9ymdb:297 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"74\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/GearCard2_s1-150x150.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll get back to you once the new testparts are in!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There were some questions on the forum lately about printing working hinges and what kind of tolerances you need to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":2965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[482,477],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6-inspiration","tag-1-whats-hot"],"thumbnail":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Creating hinges and moving parts - Shapeways Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There were some questions on the forum lately about printing working hinges and what kind of tolerances you need to make them work. Some test objects were\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Victoria Martinez\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Victoria Martinez\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6120f9613cb6182f938afc1f65d6ddcf\"},\"headline\":\"Creating hinges and moving parts\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-11-19T09:20:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-03T16:42:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts\"},\"wordCount\":205,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"keywords\":[\"Inspiration\",\"What's Hot\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts\",\"name\":\"Creating hinges and moving parts - Shapeways Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/creating-hinges-and-moving-parts#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-11-19T09:20:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-03T16:42:21+00:00\",\"description\":\"There were some questions on the forum lately about printing working hinges and what kind of tolerances you need to make them work. 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