Laptop hinge repair

Any general tips on how to make a structural repair to the broken and missing Aluminium extension from the friction pintle mount to where it joins the plastic of the LCD surround ? Fractured at the screw point so only half the screw hole remains , a highly stressed point, going by the amount of force required to turn this pintle rod.

Reply to
N_Cook
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Assuming your time is worth more than 1/10th minimum wge, it makes sense simply to replace the hinge with a replacement part. You can get one for a few bucks from a junked laptop on ebay.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

Mate of mine repairs laptops for a living, and oddly enough, we were discussing this just a couple of weeks ago, when I was in his shop, and he told me that he buys new replacement hinges from some place that keeps a lot of laptop spares. Might even have been an eBay shop. I'll check with him if you like, but it won't be until Tuesday, because he has Mondays off.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

No, I haven't the slightest idea, especially since you didn't bother supplying the manufacturer and model number.

If you're missing parts, you can find just about anything from various online computer salvage operators. Also on eBay. Be prepared to overpay. The few surviving repair shops that actually do their own repair usually have a fair collection of scrap parts laying around. Ask, and you might receive.

I've used hili-coil inserts to fix those. Also threaded brass inserts commonly used in plastic molding. Drill it out and epoxy the insert inplace. The smallest you can get is 4-40 which is a tolerable substitue for the common 3mm metric screw. I've also mixed aluminum dust with epoxy and built up the broken part sufficiently to thread the hole. It worked, but the owner had to be very careful when opening the hinge. It lasted about 3 years, which isn't too horrible. All these methods were a PITA and far too much work. If it ever happens again, I'll just epoxy the hinge to the base metal and be done with it.

You might want to look at hints at:

This looks close:

Incidentally, such breakage usually happens because the screw wiggles loose. I recommend Loctite on enything threaded into aluminum.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

If I inscribe "laptop hinge" into the eBay search box, I get 821 possible hits. Plenty to choose from. Some are amazingly cheap (direct from Hong Kong).

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Jeff Liebermann

joins

Thanks for some interesting ideas. I was thinking of using some expanded aluminium, anchored into the aluminium, with a fresh drilled small hole or two and small nut/bolts. To give a scaffold for epoxy to anchor onto. Also underscore the plastic to give a bit of key. What is the function of aluminium dust in epoxy, other than a colourant?

To the others in the thread , if I wanted to get hints on (apparently , oftn walletctomy) buying specific replacement stuff from e-bay or how to google I wouldn't be posting repair queries to sci.electronics.repair which has the word repair in the title. Why do you think I deliberately did not mention make and model?

Reply to
N_Cook

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

cheap except for the shipping charges..... ;-)

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Jim Yanik
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Jim Yanik

"N_Cook" wrote in news:h5oice$4hq$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

it's a FILLER or thickener,gives bulk to the epoxy.

I use a thin,boat-building epoxy,and several kinds of fillers such as fumed silica,wood flour,phenolic micro-balloons,and chopped glass or plastic fibers. It's very versatile. fumed silica makes a very hard epoxy,fibers add strength.

for a good read on epoxy,

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can download their Epoxy Book for free. Lots of useful info on using epoxies.

BTW,metal or plastic window screening also makes a good reinforcement/"scaffold" for epoxy.

Best to rough up the plastic surface before gluing.I even drill holes for the epoxy to flow into,for additional adhesion.

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Jim Yanik
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Reply to
Jim Yanik

fumed

A lot of various-directioned and angled , stopped, small drill holes is probably easier and more effective than what I was going to try.

Reply to
N_Cook

Yeah, but those door hinges would have looked cool, especially with #12 hardware.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

It varies. For example, these pair of hinges are $1.47 with FREE shipping:

That's certainly cheap. However, I recently bought replacement hinges for an Apple G4 laptop and overpaid $25 plus $12 S&H. Like I said, it varies. Of course the parts from Hong Kong is probably excess inventory from the manufacturer or components vendor. The domestic parts are from scapping old laptops, which adds considerable labor content.

I buy some parts from Hong Kong and find that the international shipping is often much cheaper than the excessive shipping and handling charged by domestic sellers and vendors. The real problem is the shipping delay. The best I've seen from Hong Kong is about 7 days. 10 days is typical. I'm waiting for a cell phone battery that's now at 15 days. Typhoon Morakot is currently causing havoc severe delivery problems from Tiawan and SE China.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

"N_Cook" wrote in news:h5pbg0$4h4$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

too small a hole,and all you have is a epoxy shear pin... 8-)

I don't believe angling the holes will make that much difference.

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Jim Yanik
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Jim Yanik

Epoxy is hard and brittle. Aluminum is soft an malleable. If you try to drill and tap straight epoxy, it will usually crack. The aluminum provides a cushion. You can buy aluminum filled epoxy at the hardware store, but I've found that it doesn't have enough aluminum and is mostly brittle epoxy. So, I mixed my own. The hard part was finding the aluminum powder. I made some by destroying a grinding wheel and grinding down a slab of dead soft (pure) aluminum. There are various instructions on the net for making aluminum powder. One uses aluminum foil run through a shredder, and then through a ball mill for 2 weeks. No thanks. Anyway, use only as much epoxy as necessary to hold the dust together. If sufficiently large volume, insert reinforcing bars, such as a paper clip, into the mix for strength.

Something I haven't tried is to insert the matching (3mm?) screw into the partial hole, cover it with grease or some kind of mold release, and then build up the epoxy/aluminum/whatever material around it. When it hardens, just remove the screw and you have an instant threaded hole. The problem is that it has a weak spot guaranteed to cause a stress crack at the screw hole.

If you actually want to repair some item, the idea is to supply as much information about the item and its condition as possible. Minimalist postings are useful academic exercises, but often wander badly in a futile attempt to guess your circumstances. More specifically:

  1. What problem are you trying to solve?
  2. What do you have to work with? (Make, model, version, etc).
  3. What have you done so far and what happened? There's plenty more info that would be useful, but the aforementioned are the essentials. Anything less usually results in guesswork and topic drift. I won't speculate as to your motivations for intentionally withholding useful information.
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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Cheaply priced is arbitrary. If it saved me time and effort and guarantied a solid fix instead of trying to make a hinge I would pay any reasonable price. A pair of $50 - $100 USD hinges to make an otherwise unusable laptop in working condition useable again isn't unreasonable to me.

Reply to
Meat Plow

Try this:

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or a similar product.

It's worked for me.

Al

Reply to
alchazz

Good idea. Have you tried to drill and thread it? The muffler repair epoxy I tried cracked, but my home made version worked.

I found this putty epoxy compound with Google:

The main advantage is that it's allegedly machinable, which means it has plenty of aluminum and less epoxy. Maybe add some fiberglass matting to the mix for strength.

All this to save a few dollars for new hinge.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

There is a company that make a marine repair epoxy that I am out of and can't recall the name but I swear by it after I fixed the right side handlebar mirror boss on my 2004 Kaw Vulcan when it tipped over and fell then broke the mirror off. I've since sold the bike but the repair was permanent and matched the metal in color making it almost invisible. I have no doubts the overall strength of the glue was stronger than the metal itself. I seem to recall the design of an atom on the cans. This was a paste by the way.

Reply to
Meat Plow

West?

Reply to
Smitty Two

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Most epoxies you find at outlets like Lowes and Home Depot or auto stores are lousy. They're just general purpose glues,and of limited use.

Or chopped glass or plastic fibers.

Yeah...

some folks just like to salvage everything....

I used boat-building epoxy and fillers to fix the spring clamp on an $8 electric fan.JB weld failed,but the boat epoxy with silica filler and glass cloth reinforcements is still holding.

BTW,did you know it takes a few -weeks- for epoxies to gain their full strength?

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Jim Yanik
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Reply to
Jim Yanik

Smitty Two wrote in news:prestwhich- snipped-for-privacy@newsfarm.iad.highwinds-media.com:

No,that's no paste,but a thin,fiberglassing epoxy,and no "atom" logo on it. I use some of West's fillers.(because there's a marine store nearby...)

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Jim Yanik
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Reply to
Jim Yanik

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