Motion Design Tech
Doors, draws, lids, flaps, shutters. Look around you, and whether you are in the office, in your kitchen or on the train, you soon realise you are surrounded by moving parts. Motion is an easily overlooked aspect of furniture, architectural and industrial components. But without it, we wouldn’t have any way to partition rooms, close off storage systems, shut out draughts and much, much more.
That is why, at Sugatsune, we take motion in our components seriously. We’re not satisfied with just producing standard hinges, slides and stays that do the minimum required. We believe that motion has a value in its own right. A door that doesn’t slam, a heavy lid that lifts easily, a flap or a slide that holds open in any position you want it – these are the things that make you stop and appreciate the way a component moves.
Motion Design Tech is a unique product concept we have developed to provide premium movement in every situation. Drawing on our decades of engineering expertise, Motion Design Tech applies the principles of advanced motion science to component design.
Within the Motion Design tech framework, we have developed five different solutions which now act as blueprints for adding movement to our components. They can be applied flexibly to different situations or even combined in a single product, opening the door to an enormous range of possibilities for delivering premium motion wherever it is desired.
Let’s take a look at the five Motion Design Tech concepts in turn.
Soft Motion
Soft Motion is all about convenience and control. Instead of allowing doors, lids and drawers to slam shut and fly open, our Soft Motion technology applies the brakes when a little too much force is applied, guaranteeing a smooth, consistent motion in all circumstances.
Making use of the resistance properties of viscous fluids, Soft Motion solutions can be added to door hinges, lid stays and drawer slides to control opening and closing speed, and also to return to an original position (e.g. self-closing doors and drawers). A stand-out example is our patented Lapcon rotary damper, a compact, speed-adjustable component which has allowed us to add Soft Motion to an extensive range of hinges, including our Olympia 360 concealed hinge range.
Free Stop
Free Stop is a bespoke solution that allows a vertical-opening flap or lid to be held open in any position. This is achieved by applying friction to the turning mechanism of a rotary hinge – the mechanical concept used a torque hinge. Where our solutions stand out is that we have three different ways of creating the required friction, meaning we can add Free Stop to an exceptionally wide range of hinge types.
The benefits of Free Stop are all about access, simplicity and safety. No more having to hold an overhead flap or heavy lid open as you search through the contents, and no need to add an extra stay to do the job that a Free Stop hinge can do.
Power Assist
Power Assist is designed to provide that extra bit of help you need with the heaviest doors, lids and flaps. By adding a spring to hinge mechanisms in such a way that they are compressed when the door or lid is closed, as soon as the spring is released there is an extra force applied in the opening direction, helping to take some of the weight.
In examples like our S-AT02 heavy duty spring loaded lid stay, our Power Assist solutions are so efficient that they allow even the heaviest doors or lids to ease open with just the gentlest opening force applied.
Click Motion
Click Motion provides a distinctive ‘snap and stop’ mechanism that temporarily holds swing doors in an open position. This is achieved using what is known as a detent in the hinge – a catch created by ball bearings sitting in adjacent grooves. When the hinge rotates, the ball bearings move in the grooves until they reach a slot where they catch and stop the hinge moving any more, until a light force is applied to dislodge them.
Click Motion is ideal for improving access to cabinets, holding doors open unassisted and avoiding any risk of them closing on whoever is looking inside.
Unique Motion
The standard type of motion for swing doors, lids and flaps is an arc, typically through anywhere between 90o and 120o. But this isn’t ideal in all situations, as open doors and flaps can get in the way, especially in tight spaces.
Rather than look at this as a problem of space and the size of doors or lids, we see it as a limitation in the swing motion provided by conventional hinges. Our solution? Change the way hinges move.
The Unique Motion concept reimagines hinge mechanisms to make the opening of doors, flaps and lids less obtrusive. By introducing multiple pivot points, we have developed lateral-opening hinges – exemplified by our MonoFlat LIN-X range – which push doors sideways rather than opening out in an arc. We have also developed double pivot swing hinges that extend the opening arc all the way to 180o, meaning doors and flaps can be tucked out of the way flat against the adjacent surface when open.
