Lift-off, stay-open door hinges for the Original Prusa Enclosure

Introduction

You've seen ‘lift off’ hinges that allow the doors to be removed…

You've seen ‘stay open’ hinges that use magnets to hold the open doors against the enclosure frame…

Now …drum roll please… here are some ‘lift off, stay open’ hinges! :)

Your enclosure kit came with four spare hinge pins, and four spare flat magnets - that's all the extra hardware that you'll need to build these hinges.  You won't have to cut open the original hinges to retrieve the hinge pins, so you can keep them in case you decide to go back to the originals.  You'll need nuts and screws though, so either retrieve those from the original hinges or raid the bag of spares that came with the enclosure.

Printing

You'll need to print four of the ‘door hinge' STLs.  The STLs are provided in the correct orientation to print.  No supports are needed to print the nut holes cleanly, since they use support helpers like Prusa's originals.  After slicing, check the orientation of the bridging filaments across the top of the magnet slots - they work best if the the filaments bridge in the shortest direction, which should happen automatically because of the through-hole between the magnet slots.

You'll need to print a pair of the ‘enclosure hinge’ STLs ‘as is’ for the left door, and you'll need to print a pair with the STLs mirrored (in your slicer) for the right door.

I printed mine in PETG, with a 0.4mm nozzle, 0.20mm QUALITY setting (completely standard, so 2 perimeters, 15% Gyroid infill).  The fit of the hinge pins (both tight into the enclosure hinge and loose into the door hinge), and the magnets, is good with a 0.20mm layer height.  Tolerances may be slightly different with a 0.30mm layer height - I haven't tested that.  The parts might benefit from a few more perimeters so that, for instance, the hinge pin surround in the door hinge is solid, but in practice there's very little stress on any part of the hinge when in use (except when the mighty magnets slam the doors open, ha ha!).

Assembly

Insert a hinge pin into each enclosure hinge.  It'll be tight, so make sure it's pushed all the way to the bottom of the hole, otherwise you won't be able mount the door hinge onto it.  Note the small hole that passes all the way through the enclosure hinge below the pin - this is to allow you to poke the hinge pin out if needed, although it should pull out with a pair of pliers.

Insert a magnet into one of the magnet slots in each door hinge.  I suggest using the uppermost slot (see the last two photos, one of which is backlit to show where the magnet is), so that gravity holds the magnet in, although the fit is quite tight so they'll probably stay in through friction alone.  Note that there is a through hole between the magnet slots, so if you want to retrieve the magnet without destroying the door hinge you can poke it out through that hole, e.g. with a 1.5mm drill bit.

Insert nuts into each nut recess - they should be easy to insert, but just tight enough to stay in place while you insert the screws.  Screw the parts into the same holes that the original hinges used.  As per the original instructions, take care not to over-tighten the screws that hold the ‘door hinge’ to the doors, to avoid cracking the doors.

Drop the door hinges onto the pins in the enclosure hinges in the open position (they're not removable in the closed position), and check that the doors open and close freely.  The holes for the hinge pins in the door hinges are designed to be ‘snug’ enough to be ‘wobble-free’, without hindering the movement of the door, so you need to be fairly accurate when locating the doors onto the enclosure hinges.  Check that the magnets hold the doors in the fully open position.  The magnetic force won't be very strong, but it should be enough to pull the door fully open from the last few degrees, and to stop the doors swinging closed by themselves.  If you want a stronger hold, and you have some spare magnets, you can use the second magnet slot in each hinge, but note that you won't then be able to use the through hole to poke the magnets out should the need arise.

Tip: if your doors don't appear to align with each other after fitting the hinges, it's probably because the frame has become skewed - easily done while working on it.  Try squeezing the front diagonally opposite corners towards each other (bottom-left to top-right, or top-left to bottom-right) until the doors align perfectly.