I’m trying to find just general information on how to design a living hinge, or a place where I can download a basic vector file to use on a design. I know the info is probably here somewhere, but I can’t find it! Looked for a design to download from the design catalog, but my search there didn’t give me what I was wanting.
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The design is going to be up to you to create in your design app - it’s an unlikely there is a “pattern” that will work for your specific requirements. You might be able to take other’s examples and adjust them to fit, but you couldn’t do that with a catalog design as they can not be downloaded.
Here’s a great article that covers many types/styles, which also links to some actual example files from someone else posted on Insructables.
Note these are not “hinges” in the sense of the word. They are a way to carefully create permanent curved edges as a part of an object - you can’t use them for repeated “opening and closing” of a box, for example.
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@eflyguy thank you so much for the link to the article! I’m sure that will help! Once I understand how they work, I should be able to design something in illustrator to fit the project that I want to work on. I really appreciate your help!
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Inkscape has several tricks that help a lot.
If you make a shape, copy it so it is in the saved area, then draw a line, and you can array your shape on the line. Then copy the shapes over, and halfway down between the shapes, and then array the two lines of shapes as many as needed.
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as I recall there is an inkscape plugin for living hinges.
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I don’t have ink scape, but I do have illustrator. I think the biggest problem for me is understanding the concept. And what I found out from reading the articles that there are a lot of different patterns and structures that can be tried based on angles and other mathematical equations! I’m more of a visual person though, and I will probably end up just playing around with some patterns and seeing which ones work best for what I’m wanting to do. I’m definitely not a mathematician though!
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ya, living hinges are the kind of thing you ask 4 people about and you get 7 opinions. 
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