Opening The Door To Functional Prints

If you are going to do something as a joke, there is nothing to say that you can’t do a nice job of it. If you’re like [Michael], a whimsical statement like “Wouldn’t it be funny to put Gründerzeit-style doors on the server cabinet?” might lead down a slippery slope. True to his word, [Michael] not only installed the promised doors, but he did a darn nice job of it.

Buying new doors was the easy part because the door frame and hinges were not standardized back then, so there was nothing on the server cabinet to his mount doors. He walks us through all the steps but the most interesting point was the 3D printed door hinges which [Michael] modeled himself and printed in steel. His new hinges feature his personal flair, with some Voronoi patterning while matching the shape of the originals. We love seeing 3D printed parts used as functional hardware, and hinges are certainly a piece of hardware meant to hold up under pressure.

This is not the first 3D printed door hardware we’ve seen. Check out this innovative latch printed as a single piece and here’s the skinny on making flexible objects yourself.

11 thoughts on “Opening The Door To Functional Prints

      1. Repel from the air ducting you say?

        Television. Television is the explanation for this. You see this in bad television. The little assault guys creeping through the vents, coming in through the ceiling. That James Bond shit never happens in real life. Professionals don’t do that.

    1. The yoke I get, adding those doors there is really funny. Though I doubt that the special/customized hinges (with the top halve not matching the bottom) will get the laughter the creator was looking for.
      If this door was located anywhere else (not in a server “room” (looks more like a basement)) and if the hinges weren’t 3D printed, well then it would not be on hackaday.

      If this is a hack or not, who cares, it’s more about the joke, not the hinges (that’s bull) but the complete nonsense of adding these doors there, well it made me smile… a little…

    1. Ah, yes, you seem not to understand how hacker spaces work :P

      Q: Our rack is a mess, can anybody help?
      A: I’ll put some pretty doors in front of it over the next two months.
      A2: I painted flowers on that metal box!
      A3: Look at this up-cycled toilet paper roll! It’s a Mario! The patron saint of our rack! I’ll put it up here…

      1. Exactly, that’s how it works! ;)

        @EE: The walls were painted earlier this year, no need for new paint. The main room at Metalab hasn’t been this nice and tidy quite long! Also the print wasn’t really expensive since I just happen to work with these machines.

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.