Misc. spur-of-the-moment projects

Prototype:

At first I was going to do something like this:

But then I thought... #Stickvise! And this is the moment I wish I had a 3D printer... and a Stickvise ;)

I was about to work on something else when this idea hit me so it's definitely a spur-of-the-moment project. I imagine a pair of jaws big enough to hold a range of phones or maybe even a (small?) point-and-shoot camera and a 3D printed hinged base from which two metal shafts extend in a v-shape, something like this:

When I have time I'll make some models, let me know if you'd like to give them a try.

A while a ago I ordered a cheap inductive charger like this one on eBay and was pleasantly surprised to find that it fully charges my Nexus 4 in around three hours. For some reason just having the charger wasn't enough and I had to build another stand with it:

Initially I wanted to do the same thing as with the PCB stand where the two pieces slide into each other sideways but as you can see the opening for the cable is in the way. So what I did was cut an internal slot in the 'horizontal' piece that the vertical piece slides into from the top. However, for the next version I might rotate the charger by ~30° to one side such that a slot can be cut from the other side.

I also would have wanted the cutout to be tighter such that the charger can be press fit into the opening but in this version the charger is just hot glued to the acrylic. If the press fit doesn't work I might make a cut from the outside into the opening and pull the sides back together to create a clamp. This might make more sense with a picture but I don't have one right now so a side view will have to do.

For future versions I'm also thinking about making a recess in the back of the acrylic and just using the guts of the charger. However, that depends on how the charger is built; if it's all glued up inside, taking it apart would probably be a huge pain.

The #Stickvise is awesome. I want one. What am I saying... I want ALL of them!

Unfortunately, it's currently not in my budget so what am I going to do about it? Well, build one out of stuff I have lying around, of course!

The astute reader will recognize the square aluminium profiles and acrylic from #Computer Numerical Considerations so that's where it gets its name from. I have to say, I feel a bit bad about the name but it just seemed fitting.

I felt like I was overlooking my phone's notification light when it was lying flat on my desk so I wanted to build a stand for it. I thought about making one out of wood or designing one and having it cut from a piece of acrylic. Then I thought, why not design it in Eagle and have it be made of FR-4 and that's when it hit me that I could reuse some of the (old) #Pro Trinket USB Keyboard PCBs:

So I cut slots in both boards and from there it's pretty obvious how the stand is assembled:

A piece of wire stops the phone from sliding out to the front.

You might have seen the profile page I made for them. This was a very spontaneous idea and execution and it definitely shows.