Molded In Hinges (not live hinges)

Hey guys,

I’m working on a project that requires a simple hinge mechanism to connect two injection molded parts. I started looking into simple folded metal hinges, but I think I want something with a bit more premium feel. I thought about molded in hinges (like the ones on dewalt drill cases shown below, not live hinges). I started searching to find some design guidelines, but I can’t find anything. I can’t even think of search terms that don’t bring up live hinge details. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

I would whip out your calipers and just use those as a basic dimension for your design. You can get some 3D printed parts to test and your tooling vendor should highlight any issues. If that looks the way I think it looks when it’s open, it’s just a basic C channel on one side and a cylinder on the other side (with a core out feature if it’s thick enough)

Yeah, definitely good next steps. I was just hoping to google and find some info to quickly determine if there were any glaring errors before I put the time into CAD and prototyping. But it probably shouldn’t be too much time to do that.

It seems with something that simple you would really start to run into determining a correct wall thickness based on your strength requirements which will be material dependent (I think?) Good luck, I am staying tuned.

Yes, these hinges are great - besides construction, a lot depends on the material used too that will determine the deflection force.