Folding Dewalt Tough Case Handle(Remix)

I had had the idea upon seeing the original, that it was gonna take up a lot of space in any other tool box or bag, and be annoying.  Then later when I went back to look at printing it anyway,  @dm72skidoo_1689536 had mentioned the same folding idea in the comments, and I needed a project, so I figured "why not", I'd try it.  :-D 

Took some doing to get right, and I added a center spacer bar to keep the ends from coming un latched by creeping inward(I actually had it working fine without actually needing the bar, but it was wiggly, and I feel a lot safer WITH the bar! )

You will note there are gaps(filled with washers) from the “feet” hinge pillars to the handle in my pics; That is because the original handle width is too narrow to fit my boxes. I never actually printed the 1 piece handle, but all my spacing bar and hinge placements had the feet in Exactly the same width they were as one piece; Ie overall width was unchanged. But that width was too narrow to engage the box catches correctly. So I changed my hinge design to allow spacers to move the feet outward if needed.  Its now an open 2 knuckle hinge instead of a captive 3 knuckle design, but for this application the strength/flex difference shouldn't matter.  

IF in fact the original width fits your boxes, then the stack of washers is un-needed. Or use less washers. I have 3 0.55mm washers per side… 1.65mm is a lot of clearance to play with.

( The modeling of hinges allows for 0.55mm per side in hinge clearance and keeping the original width.)  

There are two lengths for the spacer bar for this reason, 190mm, and 192mm… 190mm is the original width. 192 is what I used in the end. I'd just print the long one and it can be trimmed a bit.

I doubt it will ever be needed to have the handle narrower, but in that case either try scaling it for length, or let me know and I could try a trimmed version? 

The big thing is to get the outer catch holes on the feet in the right place for the box latches to grab them.  If you print it like I do, with the outer sides of the foot up(so the support is under the hinge pillar, and the spacer bar pocket is Down), that hole is a bridge to print. Short but there. if the bridge sags, you get a narrower hole, and wider bar. Bar wider than 2.05mm and I couldn't get the box latches to catch.  Some careful trimming may be needed. 
 

I also have included a set of feet with the raised pads on the bottom trimmed narrower. That is to fit in the narrower recesses on the top of Craftsman boxes that I have. The box top countour is also different on those boxes, and the center bar doesn't need clearance notches for the center raised ribs that “lock in” smaller boxes on the lid, And the center pad is thicker.    

The Craftsman set of feet work perfectly fine on my Dewalt boxes-- They no longer sit tight in the recess on the lid, but the latches grab them just fine.. a little better even.  But I have included Dewalt feet with the original pads intact. 

--And on the note of those “lock in” ridges on the box lid; No, my center bar does not fit tight to those ribs to locate or lock in the bar or the handles.  It was just too much more tolerances to fiddle with for me.  Not all of these boxes or the latching are 100% exact in how they sit when latched… Some wiggle room is good.   This also gives you some space to play with if the bar needs scaled in length for clearance or tightening! 

The feet may very well be identical and you can print from just one file. I didn't chase centering the original model beyond around 0.009 ish mm, so technically its off and they are not symetrical… Who cares at that scale. But I started with two feet, so I went ahead and ended with two separate feet lol. 

I'm in the USA. I have no problem with using it but Metric hardware is EXPENSIVE and hard to get in good tolerances. Thus, this is modeled to take a standard #8 bolt.  M4 should be pretty close(since my #8 measures 4.02mm), and work just fine.

And last but not least, since I am using this in part on Craftman boxes, not that it matters much(I mix and match brands), I took the Dewalt name completely off of one handle just because I could. And removed from one side of the dewalt version; That bare side down to print, and the handle takes No support.--With the text side down the text takes support. 

(I recamend using modified meshes to print the actual hinge bars solid.  I used 3 walls (my outer walls are 0.8mm, inner; 0.4) there and 25% gyroid infill. 10% everywhere else, and one outer wall of 0.8mm, 3 bottom layers, 4 top, 0.3mm layer height.  Put support under the foot hinges, with feet printed on their side.  No support should be needed for the edge of the bottom pads. No handle support, and spacer bar prints laying on its beveled top. )

Shout out to some really great software/tools I used; 

STL to OpenSCAD Converter used to make a format I could edit. 

https://openscad.org/ the best easiest modeleing software there is ;-D and;

https://github.com/BelfrySCAD/BOSL2  for hinge modules, (and the rest of the great library), were used to create really nice relatively easy automatically mating hinges. 

AND since the STL to Openscad converter gives me a polygon mesh that Does not like some solid CSG opperations(but generally better than working on raw STLs, most of the time), non manifold STLs fixed with https://www.formware.co/onlinestlrepair  before uploading here.

Yes, I'm sorry, I know I'm long winded, over explain and don't make much sense…. I'm almost in my 40s, and too tired to care to do anything different.  We're all just gonna have to live with it.. lol ;-p