While many makers have generously dedicated time to explain the mysteries of the living hinge, the efforts of the Open Source Engineering Hub at Deferred Procrastination go further than most. In the following test cuts by Martin Breuer, different patterns were evaluated for their pliability and strength across several criteria.Įxperiments and trial-and-error are one thing, but wrapping your head around the numbers behind what’s actually physically happening to the material gives you an insight into what to expect from your outcomes. As we will see, it is possible to achieve this effect with quite a diverse visual impact as the core concept of strategically placed cuts can still be achieved using many design variations.
Living hinges work by exploiting the natural tendency for materials to flex around an array of cuts or notches. There are also examples of Living Hinges successfully being implemented in acrylic enclosures, which demonstrates the versatility of this technique – because without using heat to assist bending, acrylic tends to be notoriously brittle. It is more common to see makers and hobbyists using Living Hinges in laser cut wood, because the properties of this material allow for a significant degree of flex before the material fractures.
There is another way to use laser cutting to create 3D objects from flat materials, and it uses a clever design element called a Lattice or Living Hinge. For the most part, laser cut objects consist of flat panels that are either cut or etched before being assembled into a final configuration.
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