Gas Strut placement

Hey guys, I have made an enclosure design for my machine to keep all the crap inside instead of flying out, something like this:



any idea how to place gas struts for the door if I want to do that?

Gas struts don't have much stroke plus needs lots of force to compress them.

Therefore to make this work you would probably want to put it under the shortest part of the door, almost parallel to it (when closed), which would end up nearly horizontal. You probably want it to go slightly over-centre to hold it closed.

This geometry would mean that you have lots of mechanical advantage to close the door, plus the door could move through a large arc for a small movement of the strut.

Have a look at an Estate car boot lid (Station Wagon tailgate?). You will notice that the struts are fixed to the car body almost at the same height as the hinges, and when closed sit in the gap between the tailgate and D pillar at an almost parallel angle to the door.



I seem to remember you can not only get gas struts, but spring loaded struts with much lower force. Depending on the weight of the door you might choose spring versions. Make sure the point you attached to on the door and on the frame are very strong locally as they will take lots of force.

Is this the best arrangement given you will have to stand back each time to open the doors. How about a pair of horizontally opposed sliding doors?

thank you very much for your reply, I guess I will have to re-evaluate it, the parts are already being made so I can't change it, I didn't go with the sliding doors because I was thinking the opening wouldn't be so wide since I wouldn't want the doors to go beyond the width of the machine.