I want to create a stabilizing clip for my Nintendo DS screen

I'm looking for advice about a small project. I'm a beginner to 3D printing and I've only printed artistic pieces and never functional pieces. The hinge on my Nintendo DS has become inoperable and it would cost more to repair it than to buy a new one. Ordinarily, the hinge on a DS will stop when you open it up to the ideal angle (about 165 degrees) but will also allow you to snap it all the way open to 180 degrees. But my hinge doesn't stop at all, so gravity is always trying to open it too far or just shut it while I'm playing. To help you understand the problem I'm trying to solve, here's a picture of the temporary solution I've come up with:

Attachment 12979

What I want to do is to design something in Blender that I can print out of PLA to clip onto the sides and stabilize it like that. I've drawn a mockup in green here:

Attachment 12980

Since I don't have any experience, I'd like to ask for some advice before I get started. Is this a good idea to begin with? Is there an easy way to do this that I may not be aware of? Are there any pitfalls I should avoid?

Thanks in advance :)

Go for it! The great thing about 3D design and fabrication is you can do things like this for little to no cost. You will probably get very frustrated with the software trying to figure out how to make it do what you want.. don't give up.. it takes time.
Good luck and have fun!

that's one approach and looks pretty simple and effective.
Can't see why it wouldn't work
If you made it out of Flexible pla, it would grip better and have a little give and be virtually indestructible :-)

What I would do is to dismantle the hinges, see what's broken and then probably design and make one of those :-)

But the first thing i would do is check thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3189871
'cos you never know :-)

Thank you so much for the encouragement guys!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

But the first thing i would do is check thingiverse

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That's a great find. While it might end up being easier to dismantle the DS than to design something in Blender, I'm still pretty scared to go dismantling things because I could just break it even more. Also upon close inspection I can see that the most likely cause of the broken hinge is actually some plastic missing from the top screen component, unfortunately. The little display holders are probably fine.