May 2021
hardware mounts
When I got my hands on my first personal 3D printer in 2018, I, along with many other hobbyists, was enamoured with the technology as the ultimate handyman’s tool. I thought that I could solve any problem, fix anything, by modelling and printing a suitable part. After all, how could a tool that can create anything not be the solution for everything?
And while I have greatly enjoyed owning, using, and learning from my printer, I haven’t found it to be the end-all problem solving tool I originally envisioned. The 3D printing community seems to be mostly focused on printing character figurines and other knick knacks; the practical and groundbreaking designs are few and far-between.
However, I have to showcase here two exceptions to the rule -- functional, cool 3D prints that elegantly and simply solve particular problems. First, I wanted a phone mount for my car.
Now, I know car phone mounts already exist, and yes, this problem has already been solved. However, I thought that this was a good idea to create something that was
tailored to the geometry and design of both my car, and my phone. I have a wallet-style phone case, and I wanted to create a design that would clip into the back of
this case; this could look nice and sleek while not in use, be invisible with my phone mounted to it, and allow a charging cable to attach to the bottom of my phone.
I could also fit the design to the console-facing air duct of my car, which would hold it simply and securely in place.
The final design piece I pulled in was a pattern I liked on
one of my old devices; a little bit of time in CAD, and it was all ready to print. I did run a couple small slices (not pictured) before printing the whole thing,
as I wanted to make sure I nailed the fit of the two attachment points. I would like to show a photo with my phone mounted, to showcase it’s fit, but that is a bit
hard when I’m using my phone to take the picture...anyhow, I really like the look and use of the print; I think it adds a lot of character to the car, in addition
to its usability.
Secondly, I wanted to create a wearable DSLR camera mount that was
easy to access frequently.
For many years, I have been practicing photography, and for many more years besides I have been hiking and backpacking avidly -- I often
take my camera on hikes, but have never come up with a good solution for having my camera accessible at a moment’s notice, but not burdensome or in the way while I
am otherwise hiking.
I decided to design and print one myself. I have since found similar, existing products out there, but I wasn’t looking at those when I designed this -- I actually
took most of the design inspiration from my tripod. There is a system on the tripod with a piece attached directly to the camera, which slots in and is pinched
firmly by the base of the tripod. Having lost, redesigned, and printed a replacement for the attachment piece previously, I was already halfway done.
I came up with
a slot for the camera attachment piece to mate with, and a simple 3-part design to secure the mount to a backpack strap simply by fastening two screws. I used
Sketchup Free for the design. Finally, I use a backup strap to secure the camera from a second point, just in case the plastic parts fail at any point.
Bonus Print! I came across this while digging around for pictures. Maybe I don’t know where to look, but it turned out to be impossible to find a fitting that would allow me to attach my shop vac to my table saw dust outlet, to extract sawdust while the saw is cutting. A few measurements and one big print later, I had my attachment.