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Concealed door hinges are elegant. They use sturdy pivoted
linkages to connect the door to the door frame. The first
commercially successful concealed door hinge was disclosed in
US 3,001,224 (see link).
I have designed my own concealed door hinge. Instead of
using pivoted linkages, it uses
ring segments that are coupled
via ball bearings (see illustrations). Hopefully fairly self-
explanatory.
US 3,001,224
https://patents.goo...24A/en?oq=US3001224 [xaviergisz, May 17 2020]
illustration 1
https://i.imgur.com/Nj2oIRN.png [xaviergisz, May 17 2020]
illustration 2
https://i.imgur.com/PZlMklP.png [xaviergisz, May 17 2020]
illustration 3
https://i.imgur.com/gvAtl17.png [xaviergisz, May 17 2020]
Maxwell Buchanan's amazing butterfly hinge idea.
Betterfly_20Hinge This still needs to be done. Public domain now but so what? It's great. [doctorremulac3, May 17 2020]
Door_20Teeth
[xenzag, May 18 2020]
possibilities
https://youtu.be/mrjmFiYC-XM some lubrication spaces, angle changes will be needed due to door weight. [wjt, May 23 2020]
[link]
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Very good [+].... and the aspect that makes it a halfbaked idea is ?? |
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Beautiful design and patentable. Great illustration as
well, very cool! |
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As [Max] usually said, it would have been patentable if it hadn't been published here first. |
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Elegant is right. In fact, that makes me think that
those would have been something Frank Lloyd Wright
would have liked. His specialty was concealing
everything. Good to see you [xaviergisz] as well. |
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Not the case, you have 12 months from when you
publish an idea to to patent it. Not sure if that rule
has changed but that's what it has been. |
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I'd start with a search, use "Google patents", don't
bother with the government website, it's a mess.
(surprise). |
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Then spend about a hundred bucks for the
"provisional patent". This registers priority on your
timeline. You'll have to refer to this public
publishing of the idea but that only helps to
establish the time it was conseptualized by you. |
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Then you have 12 months from THAT point to put
in your official patent application, the one that
gets reviewed and either approved or denied. |
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Good luck, keep us posted. I woud'nt let this one
get away, it's very clever. |
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How do you get the wee balls in? |
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And we're sure the top and bottom hinges woudln't
move relative to each other on the vertical axis?
Seems like it should be OK. |
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If there is an issue, adding a row of balls rather
than
just the singles should stablize it. |
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And you could also put a bit of an angle on the
ramps
so the door would close automatically. So the path
is flat until the door clears the frame, they it
gently slopes up so the weight of the door pulls it
back down. |
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Put a plateau on the end of the ramp so it'll stay
there until you nudge it back. |
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Let me know if you want to partner up on this.
Your idea with these two tweaks might be the
bomb. |
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80/20 split? You get the big chunk for the main
idea, 20 for me for the self closing, hold open
feature? |
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I love your illustrations. [+] |
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No doubt, the colors are even awesome. |
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As far as the plateaus, you could have multiple ones to
hold
the door open at two different openings 3/4 of the way
open and all the way open. Put a little dip in the path to
hold them in place. |
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Not sure it that would be necessary but you could do
that. |
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The last amazing door hinge idea to be put up here was
by the amazing Maxwell Buchanan. (link) That still needs
to be done. |
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Whatever you do Xav, you really should follow up with
this. Great idea. |
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And if you don't want me barging in on your idea, I
completely understand, I'd just like to see you do this
because it's a great idea. |
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My son got his finger squashed in the door hinge
last week which inspired this idea. Thankfully he has
recovered without lasting injury (but with a new
healthy respect for door hinges). |
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I wanted a door hinge that was covered so fingers
couldn't get in. This design could be finessed to
achieve better safety. |
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The improvements suggested are great, particularly
the self-closing idea. |
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Re: patent. I have started the clock ticking on the
grace period to apply for a patent. I would need to
get it prototyped first. It is tempting, but I would
estimate it would require a $10k investment to do it
properly. |
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I'm actually thinking of getting another of my ideas
prototyped with the view to getting a patent. It took a
lot of restraint not to post the idea on Halfbakery. If
anyone is a mechanical engineer who can design
gears travelling on a non-linear rack, let me know. |
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// Not sure it that would be necessary but you could do that |
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Are we still doing [marked-for-tagline]? |
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Love the illustration. I like the concept but you'll need something to keep any grit from getting under those bearings. |
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//This idea literally has a fingertip remover in
the design. Look at the images where the square
holes open up just ready for a toddler lying on the
floor to slip a pinky in.// |
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Oh, yow! I didn't see that, I assumed they went all
the way back without leaving a space. |
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Yea Xav, those gaps gotta be closed, those aren't
finger pinchers, those are finger choppers. Unless
you left the gaps just for for illustration, in
that case never mind. |
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Hey Big, I was thinking of just adding more balls.
Then you preserve the nice rolling supports to
make the door move smoothly. Replace the balls
and you get a lot of friction. Another factor is
you're going to need a lot of
these hinges to have any strength. With only a
couple, you've got a whole door being held from
falling off by a few ball bearings. |
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Maybe one continuous rod going through all the
members where the balls are shown would give it
the strength to hold together. Perhaps curved to
match the slots. |
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Can you animate the 3D illustration you did Xav? |
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Hmmm, "finger choppers", now there's a new use for a
door if I ever heard of one. Tooth pulling device, yes,
digit destroyers...nahhh... that's a new one. |
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//Yea Xav, those gaps gotta be closed, those aren't finger
pinchers, those are finger choppers. Unless you left the
gaps just for for illustration, in that case never mind.// |
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Yep, gaps left for illustration purposes; the hinge can be
designed such that the ring segments extend into the slots
for the door swinging between 0 to almost 90°. It can also
be designed for further rotation (with ring segments safely
in the slots), but this would require bits protruding from
the door. |
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//Hey Big, I was thinking of just adding more balls. Then
you preserve the nice rolling supports to make the door
move smoothly. Replace the balls and you get a lot of
friction. Another factor is you're going to need a lot of
these hinges to have any strength. With only a couple,
you've got a whole door being held from falling off by a
few ball bearings.// |
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Yep, again for illustrative purposes I only had one ball
bearing at each ring segment interface. Multiple ball
bearings in bearing cages could be used. |
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//Let me know if you want to partner up on this. Your idea
with these two tweaks might be the bomb. |
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80/20 split? You get the big chunk for the main idea, 20 for
me for the self closing, hold open feature?// |
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Sounds like a great deal to me. Seriously, if you want talk
about prototyping etc. send me an email. |
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//.. that's a new one.// [bliss] see Door Teeth link
for another use for the ability of hinges to grip
anything placed in their path. |
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//Sounds like a great deal to me. Seriously, if
you want talk about prototyping etc. send me an
email.// |
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Sounds like fun, I've got a 3D printer. :) |
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Funny xen wasn't thinking that kind of door thingy, I was
thinking the stringy kind, but hey, we now have 3 uses. Well, 4
if you count opening the door. |
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//grab a mechanical engineer for a few hours. I'm sure he'd
advise this design has 3 major weak points, and to get any
where near success you'd need some expensive aerospace
alloys.// |
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That's what all the mechanical engineers I know say about
absolutely everything. They hear "Special Project" and start
thinking for a moment that they in the 1960's Skunk works,
they do calculations using some exotic metal matrix
titanium alloy and get a nice thrill. |
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I blame customers, they're always whining about the price
which means practically everything ends up being made of
some humdrum steel. Almost like civil engineering. |
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