Book of Sigmarion II: Chapter 1 Revival (Broken Hinge Fix-up)

My Sigmarion II came in an excellent condition. Not even a single scratch or spot of dirt. However, like its many brothers, its hinge suffers from a design flaw that the internal part holding the hinge nuts is broken, loosening the moving mechanism and disabling the screen to support its own weight.

Therefore, the very first quest for the Solo Champion is to lift this inherited curse once and for all.

To open the machine, it would be easier to start with the the phone connector. Pay attention to where the hooks are.Use a phone opener or a small flat screwdriver to pry there. 

Continue to work on each hook around the machine.

The LCD cable and connector (left), the metal hinge (right).

This looks like the main memory (ROM and RAM) board of the machine.

The LCD cable is a delicate component. So to avoid any possible damages, loosen the LCD cable by pushing (gently) the brown lever.

Look. The metal hinge was detached from where it was supposed to be... This was where the curse fell upon.

Another damage to the hinge was the shaft holding another screw of the hinge was snapped. Part of the screw shaft was gone too.

The metal hinge was supposed to be locked inside here, but not anymore.

The source of the problem was that thin plastic nut holding the metal hinge in position was totally shattered....

If this was some other part on the casing, gluing the pieces back together would be the solution. But not in this case. The actual cause was that the original design of the plastic nut was so thin and even worse with zero support around it, despite the empty space around the component. The plastic was doomed to break apart sooner or later because there was simply not enough protection against the relatively large pressure on this particular spot resulted from the movement of the metal hinge. A clear oversight of the design. No excuse could be accepted, even for such a renowned manufacturer as NEC.

And simply gluing this second broken piece back wouldn't help much either. Once broken, it will be broken again just more easily.

What I wanted was a permanent and effective solution. I decided to make my own custom replacement part.  

Using my limited 3D modeling skills, I created a simple replacement design on TinkerCAD.

Then I transferred the finalized STL file to Cura, the most popular opensource 3D model slicer, to convert the STL file to G-code, the default file format for most 3D printers.

With the help of my trusted Creality Ender 3 Pro (with silent mainboard and firmware upgrade), the new component was beginning to come into physical existence. The printing process would take a bit less than 30 minutes.

In the meantime, I proceeded to remove the remaining bits of the original part, except for the four tiny bumps in a crosshair pattern for a good reason which would be revealed very soon. A purpose designed sculpting knife worked better than a typical Xacto knife here.

Okay, this looked clean enough.

It's about time. My custom made hinge nut is ready.

See the four notches along the rim? They were meant to fit those four bumps and help keep the nut to stay in position.

It fits perfectly on the metal hinge.

It also fits perfectly in the position of the original nut.

So now it's time for the real show. The Champion cast the Superglue spell to fixate the replacement part. 

To amplify the result, the Champion shot a stream of hotglue to fill up the empty space around the nut to ensure that the part won't break or get loosened ever again.

Take that, you fiend! 💥👿

Also apply hotglue around the second damaged site.

Continue to fill up any gaps that may help back up the area that would bear the pressure when turning the hinge.

Both the superglue and the hotglue became hardened after several minutes. It's high time to install the metal hinge back into the screen casing, right inside the hexagon hole of the custom made nut. The Champion tested the strength of the repaired site and was satified with the result.

Fitting the casings back together, the screen hinge of the Sigmarion II can now operate normally once again!

3D printing + DIY + HPC = I was having a triple FUN Sunday! 😎😎😎