Charging Stand for Huawei GT3 Watch

Note that this design will only fit charging pucks that have a fixed (non-detachable) USB lead!

OK, so this is a ground-upwards revision of Vibekiller's lovely charging stand, found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5757356

I LOVE his design. It's compact, it's practical, and it's rather beautiful to look at. It's perfectly usable as it is, but I found some minor personal irritations when I was using it.

These are (in no particular order) 1. That I prefer to use my right hand to place the watch onto the stand. 2. That I found it a little fiddly getting my watch strap through the lower opening. And 3. That I found that the cable entry point for the charging puck was getting in the way when placing the watch on the stand.

Of course, none of these are major issues, but what is the point of having a 3D printer if you can't tinker?!?

My (very old) copy of Sketch up is finicky about whether it will let me import STL files. And, in this case, the computer said NO! So I had to pull out my trusty vernier, and completely recreate his design from scratch, while incorporating my changes as I went along.

The first thing I did was the easiest; I simply mirror-flipped the design to allow me to put my watch onto it using my right hand. I then made the pedestal approximately 10 mm taller for improved lower strap access. This meant re-drawing the various curves to suit. Next I rotated the puck's cable-entry point by 90 degrees, so that it went to one side (instead of underneath). This now provided plenty of clear space for the lower watch strap to pass through. However, this change meant that the original design's very neat cable routing would no longer work. So now I had to come up with an alternative!

My first design simply left the cable emerging straight out from the side. This worked perfectly well, but it wasn't a particularly neat-looking solution. So then I added a cable-routing channel to the support pillar - only to find that the cable didn't like having a sharp bend right next to the puck! This meant it was necessary to widen the stand's pedestal by around 5mm to allow the cable to adopt a more natural curve to enter the new channel.

The channel itself caused me a few issues too: The stand prints with that face oriented to print bed so that no support is needed. But my printer always ends up with a lot of "elephant's foot" on this face (only if I want the print to stick to the bed properly!). So, when I designed the channel to fit the cable's diameter exactly, the cable wouldn't fit into the channel because the "elephant's foot" had made the slot too narrow (I actually damaged my cable by trying to force it while testing one prototype!).

In the end I went for a much looser 4mm channel, and relied on the "elephant's foot" to hold it in place instead. It sort of works - but I will probably end up adding a drop of CA glue to make it stay put in the future.

My final changes were minor, and purely cosmetic: I added an additional curve to the rear section of the base, and picked a nice font to slap a recessed "GT3" logo on the (now wider) pedestal part of the stand. The finishing touch was to add 4 circular wells to the bottom to hold some 15mm diameter self-adhesive felt feet - just to protect any surface the stand is placed upon.

I printed it out using eSun PLA+, with a 15% fill. No support is required.

Many thanks to Vibekiller for such an outstanding initial design. I can only hope he isn't too horrified with what I've done to it!

As usual I've chucked in a copy of my SketchUp file for those who wish to tinker.

So, it's about TIME I got on with something else. But do WATCH out for my next design challenge! It'll be along any MINUTE!

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

Creality

Printer:

Rafts:

No

Supports:

Infill:

15%

Filament:

eSun PLA+

Category: Gadgets