I'm amazed of capabilities of 3D printing. Everyday I'm discovering new features of it. And up to week ago was thinking that, 3D printing it's just amazing technology for makers, artists and so on. But that week ago I started to ride on my bike because in Poland now temperature is getting better every day. And I noticed that my bike speedometer is dead. I thought about using my phone with an app, instead of buying a new speedometer. But how to fix my phone to the bike? Of course I can buy this type of holder. It sounds like a good idea but it's not. A lot of holders are just for one type of phone and what if I will buy a new phone in next month? Second problem is that a lot of this holders looks bad, they are black and realy big. So I decided to design a 3D printable smartphone holder for bike (as you can see at the end not just for bike). This are main things which were the most important during the design:

Multiple phones support
Nice look
Strong
Cheap to make
Easy to print

After designing which took me 3 hours I started to print all parts(4). During printing I went to shop to buy some screws for this project.

After printing and some other stuff (you can read about it below) I assemble my holder, fixed it to my bike and put my phone in it. And then I saw something completly awesome, I made usefull thing. I made it in one day and except screws without going out of my home. It's is magic :D

You can think that it's obvious, yes it is but I was never thinking about 3D printing in this way, in way that everybody can make almost everything almost without going out of home.

And this simple thing, just a small smartphone holder has changed my look for 3D printing forever.

After 2 days I broke shower doors, 2 hours later it was fixed. Thank you 3D printing!

Step 1: Parts

Almost all parts were 3D printed, except screws and butterfly nuts but you can buy them in almost any shop. This is dimensions of screws and nuts:

- M5 screw length: 16mm X2

- M5 screw length: 20mm X1

- M5 screw length: 30mm X2

- Butterfly nut for M5 screw X5

This screws are M5 to fit in to gopro mounts, you can read why in the conclusion.

Step 2: Files

You need to print just one copy of each file. In holder1, holder3 and holder4 you need to use supports.

Step 3: Printing

All prints take something about 4 hours to print but it depends on the settings that you set. Here you can see my settings:

I used slic3r.

layer height: 0.2mm

speed: 50mm/s

infill: 50%

infill type: honeycomb

raft: no

supports: yes (just for 3 of 4 files)

I used special type of PLA to print it out, if you haven't that type of material you can use ABS (because normal PLA can be not strong enough)

Step 4: Grinding

After printing you can remove supports and grind your prints little bit. And check if screws fit holes good, if not you need to make holes bigger with file. You can also use sand paper to finish it or to fix printing errors.

Step 5: Baking(*)

*This step is optional
Because I used fiberlogy filament for this project I baked it in oven.

Why?

When you put prints made with this filament in oven for 15 minuts at 80 C it will be stronger and close to ABS (because this material is PLA).

The didn't pay me for saying this, but this material is great! It's really simple to print like a normall PLA. After 15 minuts in oven it's much stronger and much more heat resistant. When you have normal print made with PLA in the really big sun it can become soft and you can bend it but this material not. And this is main reason that I used it in this project. Second one is that it should be strong to hold your phone safe.

Of course you can use normall PLA (it should work without problems) or ABS but I don't like it and it's not healthy to print with ABS at home (you should wear mask).

here you can read more about their filaments: http://fiberlogy.com/

Step 6: Assembling

On photos above you can see how to assemble it. It's very simple so I wouldn't describe it here. I just want to say that to walls that hold your phone you should add piece of foam and fix it with hot glue. Thanks to this piece of foam it will hold tighter.

Step 7: Conclusion

I designed a gopro compatible mounting system in this holder so you can mount it on any gopro mount, even on your head but it is not so usefull I think :). But usefull thinks is small tripod or window mount. Of course instead of using 3D printed holder for handlebars you can buy one. And last thing is that you can take off your smartphone holder and install your camera on it without any problem and fast. So it's pretty usefull. You can put device which width is between 5,3 cm and 7 cm, height is unlimited.