The stubborn door – attempt failed

After the design critic with my tutor Nicolas, emerged that the prototype of the Morning Bling it’s nice and works fine, however it is only a scaled model and it’s impossible to interact with it. Furthermore, the strongest idea of my project is probably the stubborn door rather than the window. Thus I’ve been suggested to work on the door.

Obviously as the project must be showcased in Berlin and carried in a luggage it would be not possible to realise an entire door. So the idea is to realise only a section of it (50x60cm), with the door handle connected to a magnet inserted inside the door, which in turn will be connected to a light bulb actioned by a light switch.

The magnet which I intend to adoperate is one of them commonly used for fire doors, composing the magnetic lock. This sort of locks are characterised by a constant magnet field which is de-energised only in the moment that the current is passing through, unlocking the door.

The door then will be usually locked and it will open only when the light it’s off (the light bulb) and the door handle is pushed down.

I looked into the code with David and it’s not complicated, the current will be released only if both the conditions are true.

if (LightOff = true && HandleDown = true) {
currentOn = true;
}

To find out that the door handle is pushed down, there will be switch built inside the door, which is pushed as the door handle reaches the lowest position.

Understood the mechanism, I started researching for the magnets and so I called a few companies, but the prices where all pretty inaccessible, and when they were slightly more affordable they requested the VAT number of my company, which I obviously don’t have.

I then instructed my father, electronic engineer, to build one of these magnets for me. Eventually, he didn’t build it, but thanks to his contacts managed to get a magnet used for a fire door. As I seen it though, suddenly my concern was its weight and size, which such magnet I needed a rather thick wood for my door.

I consulted also the technicians of the 3D workshop at university and they confirmed my concerns, the wood needed had to be at least 4cm thick. I went to the timber merchants to buy it anyway, but as I had it in my hands I realised that unfortunately it was not feasible.

The reasons were two: it would have been too heavy (and probably big) to be carried in a luggage on a plane and secondly it would have been to difficult to install it at the conference. It should have been fixed both at the top and the bottom with a rather sturdy grip, as people would have tried to open the door when locked using their strength and it had to resist for 2 days.

Here is the inventory of all I had prepared to build the door and the instructions for the 3D workshop: