Phone Mount
Its been a pain trying to get my phone mount to work on my Miata NB. I ran across Miata vent ring ball phone holder mount, and thought I could attach my MagSafe Car Mount to it. However, since I only have PLA on hand, I was concerned that the mount might deform in the summer heat when the car is parked outside.
Borrowing the idea in Annealing 3D prints in Plaster, I decided to use some recycled clay from trimming my ceramics and try a similar method. The Miata vent ring ball phone holder mount was printed with 100% infill.
Annealing
The major problem with using clay is that the shrinkage will be significant (~10%) as it dries, which can lead to cracks. I tried to reduce the cracking by slowly drying the clay and applying additional slip to fill in any cracks that was appearing.
To anneal the 3D print, I placed it in a crockpot, keeping the temperature at 165°F for 60 minutes.
After letting it cool down and cleaning the clay off, it looks like this:
Looks some what good ? Atleast doesn’t appear to have any warping. I forgot to measure the dimensions before and after to track the PLA shrinkage, no strength test, etc.
Installation
The vent looks like this after disassembling it. For those who are trying to do something similar, I’d recommend refreshing the felt on the mount see here. This helps keeps the eye-ball in place through the felt friction.
Final result! It hasn’t been that hot the past month so it’s hard to judge how well this will hold up in extreme heat. I’ll probably have to wait until next summer to really put it to the test, but for now it has been performing.
Seat Belt Extenders
TODO!