Electrically, touch opening Kitchen drawers

swinster

Hi all,

I'm looking at some electrically opening mechanism for our handless kitchen drawers. I have been looking at the likes of Blum's Servo Drive system, although I have seen that Grass manufacture a similar product, however, I can't find any suppliers of the Grass item.

These are going to be quite expensive and a mechanical system would work out cheaper, however, they will not work for us. We also want a soft close mechanism which doesn't seem to possible with mechanical opening, or the entire draw units need to be replace as the metal side encase the mechanism. As we have hand made wooden drawers, I don't want this either.

So far, for 2 units with 3 drawers each, we have had a quote from hpponline.co.uk for around £725. Does anyone know if we can do better or if there are cheper systems out there?

Cheers

Chris

charliee_3

what do you do if they go wrong??

swinster

Open them manually. Effectively, the runners are standard soft close type (such as Blum Tandem). The servo mechanism incorporates a cam that acts on the back of the drawer to flip the unit out. However, their based on relatively simple electromechanical devices, so should give many years of service.

We have designed our draw front to provide for a small finger gap to enable the draws to be pulled if necessary. Effectively the unit was constructed as a solid timber front, then a dovetail bit was used to create a recessed/rebates groove, the timber was then cut to create the individual draw fronts. Whilst this look very good and can be opened manually, it is a little awkward, and the touch opening draws are just so damn cool. Check out Blum's promotional video - blum.com/eu/en/01/30/60/index.php

Atelier

Have you spoken to Isaac Lord? They do not have them on their website but they seem to be competitive with their pricing and sell BLUM products

PasturesNew

They'd be opening every time somebody/pet/workman/visitor walked past and accidentally touched it.

If my old mum visited and the drawer popped out it'd probably cause her confusion and a fall.

swinster

PasturesNew wrote: »

They'd be opening every time somebody/pet/workman/visitor walked past and accidentally touched it.

If my old mum visited and the drawer popped out it'd probably cause her confusion and a fall.

Intersting, but you basiccally need to push the draw in slightly to activate the machanism. Brushing past dosn't open them, or at least they didn't when I saw them a the KBB show a couple of years back.

swinster

Atelier wrote: »

Have you spoken to Isaac Lord? They do not have them on their website but they seem to be competitive with their pricing and sell BLUM products

Cheers for this. Just checked out their site but no mention of the Servo Drive, however I'll drop them an email and see what they say.

27col

I cannot believe that anyone would willingly want the complication of electrically opening drawers. How lazy can people be. It is just spending money for the sake of it.
MSE, the clue is in the title.
Ignore my outburst, as I am sure that you will, it is just the grumpy old man in me, coming out for his daily airing.

CKdesigner

Hi, We have servo drive drawers on display, they are great but a bit temperamental. I certainly wouldn't recommend having them as an after market purchase. They need to be installed with precision in the factory to work properly. I also suspect when (not if) you have service issues with them, then the company that sold them to you would simply blame the installation.

If I were you I would save my money and future frustrations!

swinster

27col wrote: »

I cannot believe that anyone would willingly want the complication of electrically opening drawers. How lazy can people be. It is just spending money for the sake of it.
MSE, the clue is in the title.
Ignore my outburst, as I am sure that you will, it is just the grumpy old man in me, coming out for his daily airing.

It is more difficult to open draws that have no handles, and before you say, this is part of the design. However, I do appreciate your comments. MSE can also help to "save" money on items that you do want to purchase.

swinster

CKdesigner wrote: »

Hi, We have servo drive drawers on display, they are great but a bit temperamental. I certainly wouldn't recommend having them as an after market purchase. They need to be installed with precision in the factory to work properly. I also suspect when (not if) you have service issues with them, then the company that sold them to you would simply blame the installation.

If I were you I would save my money and future frustrations!

Interesting and this is appreciated. Maybe we will just put up with the awkwardness ot the design.