"Damper" is used loosely in this industry. Two parts with the same body dimensions can behave completely differently in the hand, because they are built around three different damping characteristics.
1. Constant-force damping
The resisting force stays roughly the same throughout the travel. Push it 10 mm or 40 mm and it answers with the same steady resistance.
Use it where the motion should feel consistent and predictable — a door that should move at one speed from start to finish, or an industrial lid that an operator opens dozens of times a shift.
2. Variable-force damping
Resistance changes along the stroke — normally rising towards the end. The motion starts easily and gets firmer as it reaches the seat.
This is the characteristic behind most soft-close feels: the drawer is easy to start and then settles without a knock. It is also what makes a heavy door feel controlled rather than simply heavy.
3. Energy-absorbing damping
Designed to take energy out of the system quickly — the priority is decelerating a moving mass rather than shaping how the motion feels.
Typical uses are buffering an impact, stopping a sliding door at the end of its run, or protecting a mechanism from the shock of a slam.
Which one do you need?
Work backwards from the complaint you are trying to fix:
- "It slams" → energy-absorbing, or variable-force with a firmer end.
- "It feels cheap and inconsistent" → constant-force gives the steadiest hand feel.
- "It's too heavy to open" → look at pull-out force first; the damping mode matters less than the force.
On our side, damping characteristic, pull-out force and stroke are chosen independently, so the same mechanism family can be supplied in any of the three modes to suit the application.