UNIVERSAL SOFT CLOSE UNIT
The aim of this project was to create a universal soft close system that could be installed on the full range of sliding wardrobe doors offered by the company.
This project utilised injection moulding to create a housing for an 'off the shelf' soft close dampener and saw the design of custom, height adjustable pins that would allow for a range of tolerances upon installation.
The housing was designed to be installed on the full range of doors on offer by providing different mounting points which allowed the installers to fit it regardless of door design or construction.
Full scale prototypes were 3D printed so they could be assembled and used on doors in real life scenarios. This was invaluable for testing concepts and evaluating their performance before paying for expensive tooling.
The unit mounted to aluminium doors using a quarter turn cam which allowed for easy assembly while also offering some positional adjustment.
The unit was mounted to steel doors by using existing fixing points on the running gear and also by using a small strip of high strength double sided tape.
Custom pins were designed to allow the soft close to trigger when the doors were used. A bespoke fixing sits in the centre that allows the pin's height to be fine tuned once installed. This means that the pin can be adjusted up or down to suit any unlevel surfaces.
Two different plastic parts were designed, one to sit slightly offset with steel doors and the other to fit centrally with aluminium doors.
This image shows the steel door assembly.
This image shows the aluminium door assembly.
