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How to Improve the Life of Your Hinge
We decided to carry out an experiment to see if adding grease would extend the life of a hinge - and more importantly how much it would extend the life. The results might surprise you.
One of the ways our quality control team tests our hinges is by cycling them open and closed on our hinge testing machine. This machine uses a stepper motor to action the hinge open and closed. One open and closed equals one cycle.
For the first test we installed 2 of the #4520 – 90° Rise Cooler Hinges, without any grease applied.
We found that after 10,000 cycles the nylon bearings wear down to a point where they are not usable.
This happens because of the friction where the 2 faces meet. This gradually wears down the nylon bearing. As you can see in the picture the dust from the worn-down bearing has built up around the nylon cam of the hinge.
After this test we did a second test with an identical pair of hinges. Before the test started, we added grease to the hinge. We did not add any additional grease to the hinge once the test began.
With the grease applied this hinge performed very well. This picture was taken after the test was complete and as you can see there is minimal wear on the nylon bearing. The “rough edges” you might see is actually the grease we applied at the start of this test.
So, what is the final result? With grease applied this hinge reached over 62000 cycles. That's 6x better performance over a non-greased hinge.
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