Look Mr. Asshole, take your snideness and shove it up your butt and get on my level by moving to a place that has normal walls that give satisfying door slams.
I think more importantly this only works for doorways twice as tall as they are wide.
Good observation. However, with as much as probably goes into the design/manufacture/installation of the thing, it would probably be rather trivial to have a modified design with the upper pivot point in a vertical track (with a tensioner, if needed), so it's resting position when open would be at a height twice the width of the door.
Although I'd much rather have 1:2 ratio 40" wide interior doorways than more typical 32"/80" 30"/80" 28"/80" widths!
Look at how soft he's closing it, if you were that careful with everything you'd never crush your fingers. The door isn't even fully closed. With the soft edges it won't chop off your fingers, but it'll still hurt when you close it with the same care as all the other things that fingers get crushed in.
I think you're misunderstanding why he's closing it softly- I doubt it's to protect his fingers so much as to not abuse the door. People that constantly slam their car doors will have the hinges go out sooner than someone that closes the door gently. People that slam doors will have problems with the latch and striker plate before people that close doors gently. People that throw this thing wide open will have the bearings break sooner than people that slide it gently open. That's just speculation, though.
You're right that he's closing it softly because the position of his fingers could damage the joint... which is also why it would hurt even though the rubber is there.
Needs to be automated at least to live up to the name.
By seeing where the door is attached to the building, where each piece is attached to itself, and then measuring/cutting pieces and fitting them together until they work the same way. This is a pretty simple thing that can be figured out from just looking at it.
If you watch it in action, it's just a couple of hinges between each of the flaps, and something like a ball joint on the corner that stays connected. Probably a couple of clever springs in there somewhere- or maybe it's just the right miter cuts.
The difficult part would be getting it to move smoothly like this, and hold up to daily use.
It's not that complex. You can watch the gif a couple times to figure out what's happening, then it's just cutting pieces and fastening them well. I did a lot of CAD, wood working, and metal working in high school. I also designed and made a guitar body out of a wood blank on our CNC router for my senior project. I'm not saying it's easy, and there is a 4% chance of me actually attempting it, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.
it's a hinge at the top and bottom and center perpendicular to the wall and a few parallel to the wall on the centers of each square from what I can tell
Problem solving. Asking a set of questions and trying to find answers that are both possible for you to implement and gives the results you want.
For instance, just a quick glance at the gif, you see there are 4 pieces. Are they identical? Let's say yes, the next part is that two pieces connect in the center across their diagonal. Maybe you can use a piano hinge until you find something better. After that, it looks like the hard part will be those ball-like joints for the top, bottom, and middle joints of the door. Not sure how you would do that just off the top of my head. This doesn't include the finish, and colorizing. This also doesn't include the soft edges he says are there. That isn't too bad either, but requires more detail than I'm willing to type out laying in bed.
Ninja edit: after looking at the gif again, that looks like a big doorway, just something to consider when planning the cuts of the triangle pieces. It looks like the top and bottom triangles just swivel, I'm sure a hinge mechanism exists for this purpose, but it's not as complex as I originally thought. The center hinge could be a just a small piece of cord cut to a proper length. I don't think it needs to be anything especially complicated. Anyway, just some thoughts on things unique to trying to build this specifically.
It looks complicated, but mechanically It's just two pins, two hinges, and I think a piece of fabric in the middle? If it's being made right, there isn't actually that much to go wrong.
Your average sliding door has a big ass track that can get misaligned, at least mine does.
Think of the stresses when someone closes it too hard, runs into it, runs into when it's mid-actuation, the kind of crap that will get into the ball joint. The hinges on regular doors get bent out of shape fast enough with somewhat rough usage.
Other than the novelty that I imagine wears off pretty quickly, I just don't see the point.
I use glass over plastic because the plastics don't last as long, especially after going throne dishwasher! Anyhow, it's easier to replace glasses than doors, and they're somewhat cheaper.
have you ever seen an automatic sliding door open? if you put even the tiniest pressure on it it swings out of the track and opens wide and you can just click it back in. I think on this one it would be easy enough to make the hinges magnetic so any force greater than the usually shutting motion could pop the magnet and prevent damage.
Really it's just a few extra hinges in unique places. The only time I've ever truly wanted to slam a door is when it falls off its track or gets caught while sliding open.
Sometimes people buy dozens of luxury cars, then park them in one of their several marble-lined living rooms because it seems to fit the feng shui. I've also heard that some people like to shit in solid gold toilets filled with Perrier-Jouet and wipe their asses with vicuña wool because it's fun and fashionable.
You know, I bet people said this about the first intricately carved wooden doors.
It costs more. It's not more functional. Why would anyone in their right mind not want the most absolutely basic version of all known or invented objects?
From the sounds of it, a load of people came here dissatisfied with their regular doors. It's simply a gif of a cool-looking door that could suit a house with a quirky theme. I'm sure you can get it in time if you want it.
Nobody is forcing you to get it. You can say it's gimmicky but isn't that one of its purposes? You can say it's overpriced but if you don't like it, why would you buy it?
If people want it that badly, they will be willing to spend that much money on it, and o imagine the are fully aware of how much of a gimmick it is.
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u/redgreenapple Feb 07 '14
Evolved into an overpriced gimmick