Spring Phone Cradle

I'm in the process of creating a bespoke centre pod in my car, to hold my mobile phone in landscape mode when I use GPS. I've almost finished the main pod assembly (which will be another "Thing" in due course. UPDATE: See thing 3125678), but I had to devise a way to actually hold my phone securely whilst the vehicle was on the move.

But how to get that essential grip? I know elastic bands are popular, but a car's interior environment isn't friendly to rubber bands over any sort of time. They either snap (at the most inopportune moment), or they turn into a horrible gooey mess.

So I was determined to use some sort of spring. This got me scratching my head because, unless you happen to have a tension spring, you have to make a compression spring work the opposite way to the clamping motion if you want the device to grip the phone, and I couldn't visualise it.

The solution came to me whilst my arms were folded, when I got an itch on the outside of my elbow. As I scratched the itch, I had a "eureka" moment when I realised that my arms were showing me exactly how it could be done: If I imagined my fingers were the spring mounts, then opening my arms would cause an imaginary spring to compress. Sorted!

A quick search of my oddments tin - we've all got one - produced a couple of small springs that came from some old pens. They weren't ideal, but they WERE handy! so I designed it around them.

The unit also requires 2 small bolts which will cut their own thread into the plastic. I have no idea what size the bolts are, as I found them in a drawer with some old computer parts I had lying around! What I can tell you is that the outside of the thread comes out about 2.8mm

I have purposely attached both the STL and the Sketchup Files, so you can tweak the basic design to create more bespoke fixings for tripods, ball joints, clips, or whatever takes your fancy.

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

Creality

Printer:

Rafts:

No

Supports:

Resolution:

works at 0.2, but finer would be better!

Infill:

Filament: E-DA PLA Black

Notes: