Easy
Process:
My wife told me that while she was ferociously photocopying home schooling curriculum she broke the lid off our all-in-one photocopier (Samsung SCX-4828FN) so I had a look and fond that she had indeed broken one of the injection-molded plastic hinges.
After taking it off the photocopier I had a closer look at it and realized that gluing was out of the question, plastic welding wouldn't work either and the only thing that jumped out at me was to take a piece of aluminum and machine one from scratch.
However, the time this would take was not sitting right with me so I did some searching online and actually found a replacement hinge on ebay, but was shocked that the price plus shipping was close to $50 bucks.
After some more thinking I came up with a way to do it that wasn't going to take too much time and would still be solid enough to never ever break again.
Basically, I took a strip of 18 gauge sheet metal and bent it around the plastic hinge, riveted it to the bottom and each side and then drilled two holes at the appropriate height from the bottom.
It actually turned out quite easy to do. It still took me about two hours, but now I know that that hinge will never break again, no matter how savagely she works that machine.
The last thing I had to do was to take a dremel and widen the plastic hole in the photocopier to make room for the extra width of the hinge and voila, all done.
Videos:
Pictures:
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| The broken hinge |
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| The way it's supposed to look (picture from $50 ebay hinge) |
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| A piece of 18 gauge steel I cut to size on the metal band saw |
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| After the piece of metal was bent to its proper shape |
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| Another view |
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| Test fitting the bracket to the broken hinge |
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| Front view |
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| Putting a rivet at the bottom of the hinge |
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| The finished hinge |
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| Another view |
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| Another view |
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| Taking the trim off to widen the hole for the wider hinge |
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| A few hidden screws under the control panel |
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| The hinge installed to the lid, but before putting it onto the printer base |
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| Widening the hole in the plastic trim |
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| The installed hinge |
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| Another view |
Tools:
Metal band saw
Hammer
Vise
Drill
Digital calipers
Materials:
6" of 3/8" wide, 18 gauge steel
3 rivets
Cost:
$0.00
Time:
2 hrs
Savings:
$50
Conclusion:
It works great. Another notch on the belt!
1 comments:
A great job, a great idea. Thanks!
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