Rhinestone Hinge Stop

[dgame]

Frustrated by the fully opening hinge I decided to put a stop to it.

What I did was glue a Jet black rhinestone on the back of the Pandora next to the left hinge.

The rhinestone acts as a stop preventing the lid from opening all the way.

It took a lot of trial and error but I got it in the position just where the opening force of the hinge engages.

Place the rhinestone to high and the screen could fall forward when holding the Pandora upside down.
Placing the rhinestone too low is not as bad but I wanted the minimum angle with the screen locked in place.
This position turned out to be about 4mm from the top of the back using a 7mm rhinestone.

Now in the process I learned that rhinestones are made of glass and that glass does not easily stick to plastic.
I also learned that super glue is NOT to be used to glue glass to plastic.
I ended up using E600 and so far so good.
I am letting it cure three days before repairing and painting the area that I screwed up learning these lessons.

In removing several failed attempts of super gluing the glass to the Pandora I managed to gorge/scratch the plastic pretty good.
I had taped off the area so in the process of sanding/scraping the old glue off of the Pandora I created a little chasm.
The good thing is that this area is not visible when using the Pandora.
A little plastic filler and flat black model paint and it should be okay.

The verdict: It works! Now I can use the Pandora on my desk with the stylus without holding it.
My hands are also in the normal gamepad position (gamepad horizontal) when using the Pandora in hand.

Here is a poorly doctored render showing the general location of the rhinestone:

 

[WizardStan]

And what if you want to open it further, all the way to the 170 degree mark?

 

[dgame]

I don't. The stop puts in the position I want it to be in. While playing in hand held mode I was constantly holding the screen at an angle with my index fingers which is what gave me the idea. I don't like it in the fully opened position.

 

[PokeParadox]

I'm guessing that he doesn't want to do that...

 

[Poem58]

I probably will want to do something similar. However I had more of one of the idea to use one of those little stick on rubber bumper things. It may not be as permanent, but won't scratch and should be easy to remove if I need to open it up all the way for some reason, and easily replaced. IF it sticks well enough.

Kinda like one of these if I can find one laying around after my Panda shows up.

Massively magnified.

 

[paddy]

Very good idea ,but opening up the entire lcd compartment and modding the hinge barrel is what i am going to do.

 

[daffy]

It completely boggles my mind that with all the effort that went into this thing:

- no-one in initial design thought to say "the screen should have stops at 135 degrees and 180 degrees" and when no-one said that...
- no-one who then testing the initial prototype units said "wow, we really should put in a stop for the screen at 135 degrees, since when you hold it, this is obviously the position you want it in most of the time"

And they should have similarly arrived at putting one at 90 degrees as well.

I can't imagine any kind of careful design process that either never consider these, or decided against them. Utterly incomprehensible. And the result is the single biggest $@#!#% annoyance about the thing.

 

[urjaman]

I can't imagine any kind of careful design process that either never consider these, or decided against them. Utterly incomprehensible. And the result is the single biggest $@#!#% annoyance about the thing.

a) multi-stop hinges are patented IIRC.
B) I like to use the pandora fully open (when holding it). It would be nice to have the hinge a bit stiffer, though (for when you have it on a table and try to use the touchscreen).

 

[mali]

^ It's easy to explain. They did think about it and did some research. Unfortunately the hinge with two lock positions is patented by Nintendo and a custom hinge would have been too expensive.

h34r:

 

[Prometheus]

@daffy - Not only was it very obviously considered, it has also come up a number of times, in fact. The most recent time it came up was here, if I'm not mistaken.

EDIT: h34r:'d as well.

 

[Sphinxter]

A spring loaded pawl and ratchet clicking every 5 degrees or so might have worked. Don't think anyone has patented simple machines no matter how much they'd like to.

 

[Tobriand]

^ It's easy to explain. They did think about it and did some research. Unfortunately the hinge with two lock positions is patented by Nintendo and a custom hinge would have been too expensive.

h34r:

A thought crosses my mind: Would that patent apply if there were two single lock hinges in place rather than two multi-lock ones?

I.e. have the left hinge lock at 135 degrees, and the right at 180.

Same effect, but no infringement, provided there are considered to be two hinges in place on the Pandora.

Doesn't matter though... it's annoying not to have it lock at 135 degrees, but it's not *too* annoying - for me at least...

 

[WizardStan]

- no-one who then testing the initial prototype units said "wow, we really should put in a stop for the screen at 135 degrees, since when you hold it, this is obviously the position you want it in most of the time"

There were only about 10 or so prototypes that went out, and the general consensus of those very few was that 170 degrees was actually very comfortable, moreso than the 160 degrees of the DS. I had opportunity to use one of the prototypes for about 10 minutes and I quite agreed. It's possible a larger sample would have found some people who thought 170 was a bit too wide and 160 or 155 to be better, but the sample size wasn't great enough.
135 degrees would definitely have been way too shallow, though. I've set my DS to that angle just to see what it's like, and in order to see the screen from a sitting position, I either need to tilt the whole thing down and away which twists my wrists at a bad angle, or hold it parallel at neck level which becomes tiresome after a short time. Even the 160 degree lock on the DS has felt a little too shallow since using the Pandora. I usually keep mine at the fully opened 180 degrees now, but that's too wide. 170 degrees really does feel comfortable for me now.
It may have been nice to add an additional lock at 155 or 160 degrees for those that want something shallower in addition to the 170 degree lock, but that just wasn't feasible, for the reasons already mentioned.

 

[mali]

A thought crosses my mind: Would that patent apply if there were two single lock hinges in place rather than two multi-lock ones?

I.e. have the left hinge lock at 135 degrees, and the right at 180.

Same effect, but no infringement, provided there are considered to be two hinges in place on the Pandora.

Doesn't matter though... it's annoying not to have it lock at 135 degrees, but it's not *too* annoying - for me at least...

As far as I understood it, they bought a design "off the shelf" and so they had to choose something that was available at that time. It's hard to say if such a design would be allowed if it existed, but another problem I see with a double sided hinge is that the space for the LCD cable would get narrower.

 

[Mqark]

Like a Rhinestone Hinge Stop
stopping hinges from falling past
the point where the stone is glued
and they all came along for the show...

Damnit now that tune's going to be in my head all day.

 

[Käptn.Karacho]

how about using something like this?

i don't really know how to describe this in english (i am austrian )
but if you want to use the pandora fully opened you can klick it and it would lie flat on the case
it wouldn't stick out fully the whole time, especially when you want to put the pandora in your pocket this would be a nicer thing because it wouldn't break

i hope you guys understand what i am thinking about
it's hard to describe for me

by
KK

 

[tsh]

My thought for desk working (if you really want it) was a block fitting behind the case (think massively cut-down docking station) and attached by locating round the lower half of the hinge. Or a paperweight/bookend style support which it rests against.
Most of the time, I want fully open (or closed)

 

[puppydee]

Super glue. Fast, hardly visible, no need to take to bits, done in seconds, doesn't close, ok maybe not

 

[paddy]

nintendo should burn for this for sure ,it should never have been allowed to happen ,what if car companies done this with car doors opening ?

 

[Prometheus]

nintendo should burn for this for sure ,it should never have been allowed to happen ,what if car companies done this with car doors opening ?

I get the impression that Nintendo paid to have their hinge custom-designed for them. I suspect this is not something they should burn for.

It has been outright stated (and I even linked to the post where it was said ) that the OpenPandora team could also have had a custom design made, but it would have had long lead times and been very expensive. This is, believe it or not, nothing to do with Nintendo.