10.8 Flexures, clips and print-in-place
Printing makes thin, bending features cheap, so a printed part can carry its own springs, hinges and catches. A flexure must stay elastic in use: thin enough for the travel it needs, several thin blades instead of one thick one for force, and a hard end stop so it cannot be bent past its limit [1]. A clip is a flexure with a hook, and it lasts only when it bends in the plane of the layers and travels as little as the retention allows. A living hinge has to lie flat on the bed. A print-in-place mechanism is printed already assembled, with a clearance between moving surfaces that every printer can hold and break-away supports under floating parts. The beam theory of a flexure, its rate and its strain limit, and the pseudo-rigid-body model are in Compliant mechanisms; the rate of a printed spring is in Printed springs, and the PLA latch of Over-centre mechanisms shows a flexure taken to the edge of its strain. Our tests are flexure rates against beam theory, clip cycles to failure by orientation, and a clearance gauge for print-in-place joints run on all 54 printers.