Almost every door needs to be either open or closed, rarely do we need it half open. Since the doors (not the band) in my home are old, some of them tend to open or close automatically because their hinges are loose or slightly rotated. So some doors tend to open/close and usually not as desired.
I want to create a mechanism that will force the door to go towards its nearest position (open or closed). Something like this:
When door is left in the open area, it should open (even slowly) and stay there, and the opposite when it is left in the red area. I don't care if it will completely close, but at least be moved to that end.
Specs:
- The mechanism should be nearly silent
- It should be cheap (less than 25e/30$)
- Should be installable to the existing doors.
- I don't care if I'll have to drill door/floor or case.
- It shouldn't use electricity. Only mechanical power.
- I don't want to use door stoppers, this is the obvious solution.
I have considered somehow using strong magnets (I have several from broken hard disks) in order to move to the nearest end, but since I'm not an engineer I cannot come up with a design. Any ideas?
Best Answer
The best approach would be gravity self closing hinges such as these
These are designed to close the door, regardless of the angle of position.
What you need is the same type of device, but one where the high point of the lower section is at the midpoint of the swing. On one side of the midpoint, the door would swing in, on the other swing out.
As far as I know, no such versions are commercially avaialble. If you are handy and have the tools, you could gring the adjoining faces of such hinges down to create the right "tip point". Note that the door needs to rise and fall a small amount to make this happen.