Looking for any information on a plastic Butterfly hinge design

I thought I'd ask here if anyone has any information or specifications
for a typical Butterfly hinge. I'm looking for any patents, design
drawings, or contacts in the industry that can help me in designing
this style hinge. This hinge can be seen on may plastic hinged parts
such as flip top caps on Shampoos or lotion bottles or other cosmetic
containers. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Larry Jedik
Currier Plastics Inc
Design Engineer
www.currierplastics.com

 

I know these as 'living' hinges, so a google search on this should
throw up something.

http://www.efunda.com/DesignStandards/plastic_design/hinge.cfm gives a
quick start.

TTFN

Jonathan

 

Hello Larry,

I call these "Living Hinges" and I have a SW example of one. If you would
like the example just email me @ :



Just take out the trash.

Muggs

 

Actually, the Butterfly hinge is in the family of the Living Hinge but
a different variation. I have designed in many living hinges and have
thoose specifications. I am looking for a peticular style that is
refered to as the "Butterfly Hinge" which has two wings on either side
of the living hinge which creates a snapping action on the closing
portion of the lid.

 

Design of living hinges is heavily driven by choice of material and by
the number of times the hinge is exercised. If you go to the GE
Plastics website, there is a design guide that has information on
designing living hinges. That is the best resource for that (at least
that I know of).

Montie
Montie Design
www.montie.com

 

I've also been looking at living hinge issues including "flip top" type
designs, some of which are patented.

check the www.uspto.gov and learn how to do the advanced searches on
Class-Subclass so you can see all the patents in a given area.

Check out the following:

Class 220-827
Class 220-838
Class 220-839

I know I have more info around and downloaded patents, but they are for
other purposes than bottle cap type functions.

It takes munging around the patent office files to find a relevant
patent and then search for patents that reference that patent later in
addition to those referenced in the patent from before and also
checking out the other patents in all the referenced Class-Subclasses
for that & similar relevant patents.

Bo

 

Well I learn something everyday. Sounds like a detailed design which
people won't want to make public.

As for patents - good luck with the searches but be aware that people
make a habit of trying to file the patents in the most obscure
catorgories, and that using a patent atterney to do the search at
least gives you some protection when you infringe.

TTFN

Jonathan

 

Actually, many shampoo bottles and similar consumer one piece flip-top
plastic caps use these types of bi-stable hinges.

The hardest and most unknown area of searching is for things NOT
patented which will also be "prior art", and foreign patents which are
less easily obtainable and usually require a small fee to get a copy.
You can get a start on this avenue from:

http://www.wipo.int/portal/index-ns.html.en
http://www.delphion.com/collect_descrip

The use of searches based on Class-Subclass in the patent office is the
way you search on a specific catagory, in spite of what the inventor
used as a name for the patent.

Once you get a specific relevant patent, you can then looked at the
referenced patents at the time of its issuance, and then ALSO search
for any patent that referenced that patent after that time up to today
with the Advanced search functions at the USPTO.gov reachable from this
page for free:

http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Bo

 

Also look at a japanese company with a new uniques flip-cap

www.hyper-cap.com
www.little-inco.com

Bo