Is your hinge loose yet?

[elinscheid]

Hey people. My pandora's hinge used to be really stiff and now it is a little more loose then I would like. It will easily fall backwards if the unit is bumped. So its not bad enough that I think it is broken, but I wanted to hear from other users and ask if their hinges are too loose at this point. Has it gotten bad enough for anyone that they have returned their units for repair?


Thank you!

 

[peelie]

hinge was designed to sit at 90 or 180 degrees, you could put stoppers at the back to support an angle in between.

 

[moxie]

People tell me I'm completely unhinged, and so is my pandora


Seriously: It is only really designed to stay at full opening angle. Anything else is a bonus.

 

[Exophase]

My hinge initially was pleasantly stiff but it loosened quickly. It's not rigid at 90 degrees and will pretty easily flip back like you describe. Even at the full open position it's not really that stable, wobbling easily if you move it.

 

[Nardella]

The quality of the hing is disappointing. But I am still happy with my Pandora

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, the hinge was designed to be at 180° or 0°.


It wobbles a bit to prevent damage in case you use too much force on the touchscreen.


It stays midway when you get it because of the painted case.


Once he paint wears off, it won't be that stiff anymore.


That's not broken, it's designed to be like that.


We wanted a mid-position, but the manufacturer of the hinge (the same one who does the DSi hinges) didn't want to sell us those (special deal with Nintendo), so we couldn't get a different one.


Apart from that, the hinge is exactly the same as the one in the NDSi (AFAIR, you can even replace it with an NDSi one).

 

[Jey123456]

i personally just use a tiny bit of paper that i slide in the hinge to "lock" it at whatever position i want to.


without it, my hinge is somewhat stiff, its able to hold if i dont shake it too hard.


But well, the paper pretty much lock it in place.

 

[sebt3]

i personally just use a tiny bit of paper that i slide in the hinge to "lock" it at whatever position i want to.


without it, my hinge is somewhat stiff, its able to hold if i dont shake it too hard.


But well, the paper pretty much lock it in place.

rather neat, simple, and cheap hack.


I wonder why I never though about that before and why I never saw a post like this before....

 

[Nardella]

Well, the hinge was designed to be at 180° or 0°.


It wobbles a bit to prevent damage in case you use too much force on the touchscreen.


It stays midway when you get it because of the painted case.


Once he paint wears off, it won't be that stiff anymore.


That's not broken, it's designed to be like that.


We wanted a mid-position, but the manufacturer of the hinge (the same one who does the DSi hinges) didn't want to sell us those (special deal with Nintendo), so we couldn't get a different one.


Apart from that, the hinge is exactly the same as the one in the NDSi (AFAIR, you can even replace it with an NDSi one).

Well thanks for clearing that up for us!


So, how many ways have you guys been burned/stalled/hurt in your design and production by competing manufactures? Don't try and answer that, I suspect it will depress us all.

 

[DaMummy]

who is this competing manufacturer of which you speak of? GPH wanted no part of it due to complex design, thats about as close as it gets

 

[elinscheid]

Like I said earlier, I didn't mean to say that my Pandora is broken, I was just worried that it would get worse. I will try the paper thing. Thank you

 

[MarioPandio]

Of the three units I've had they all managed to maintain decent hinges but i suspect they will loosen eventually.


As for design issues that were curbed by other manufacturers i think you'll find the button layout and labelling is copyright, cross D-pad are Ninty (and they can keep them), double lock hinges as ED said are Ninty only, swivel, slide and foldable (tablet mode) screens are patented by the phone folk as are slide out keyboards etc. So the clamshell is the best design really and looks more like a mini laptop.

 

[Nintendo]

Has anyone out there had a Pandora that has had a stiff lid hinge remain stiff from first received to present day (now)?

 

[moz]

Mine is still almost as stiff as when I got it (May 9th).

 

[Nintendo]

That's too recent for my hinge stiffness studies, sorry.

 

[moz]

How long until yours started to lose stiffness?

 

[Nintendo]

Both of them were never stiff, ever unfortunately.

 

[lomaxx]

I tried three different attempts to solve this issue:


I liked the FisherTechnik-solution most, although it was the most unpractical one -> http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/56600-pandora-meets-fischertechnik/


Then I tried a leightweight-solution with material i had in the house: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/56918-lid-holder-3-house-hold-items-and-quickly-built/


And at the bottom of that thread are pictures of the best solution I heard about so far, which Peelie is probably referring to and which Twiitcher came up with first AFAIK:


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/56918-lid-holder-3-house-hold-items-and-quickly-built/page__view__findpost__p__921166


The stoppers i use myself are square, but that shouldn't make a difference at all - just that i prefer the square shape. Sometimes i have to push the stoppers up again a little. And once so far i had to remove them and replace them with two new ones. But both of it needs to be done pretty rare and the glue does not affect the paint of the case.

 

[MarioPandio]

Before this un-hinged conversation gets too loose with risque double-entendres, I'd like to emphasize for the record "That I never stated I have had 3 simultaneous, or consecutive stiff ones, except for large doubles....of the drunken variety

"

 

[ScottChegg]