Foldable gamepad for CMF Phone 2 Pro - Customisable PixelArt - Magsafe compatible.

Design of the Foldable Gamepad

This compliant gaming pad offers a compact design, meant to be always with your phone and you.

• Pros:
  • Compact. Only adds 4,5mm to the depth of the phone.
  • Always have it when you need it.
  • The grip can be folded in two different positions
    • One for when you are in a chair, looking down.
    • One for when you are lying on the bed, looking up.
  • Magnets can be added to have compatibility with Magsefe accessories. You can use:
    • Circular magnets 3x1mm (40 units).
    • Magsafe magnet ring (Aftermarket ring with magnets)
    • Magsafe metal ring (Aftermarket ring without magnets. This one is cheap and popular, but the accessory will relay only in its own magnets, which need to be strong enough)
  • Easy to customize using one of the different pixel art patterns, by coloring the pixels in your slicer.
  • The amount of filament changes required is minimal, can be printed with out an MMU or similar.
• Cons:
  • There is a compromise in the confort offer by the grips. 
    • Better than gaming using just the phone (especially when lying on the bed)
    • Not as good as a normal gaming pad (non foldable) because of the shape and the lack of rigidity of the grips.
  • Not compatible with Magsafe chargers. Only accessories like the CMF Phone 2 Pro Wallet and stand.
  • The 4,5mm of extra depth may be to much for you, depending your preferences (the CMF Phone 2 Pro has 7,8mm of depth, so its 12,3mm in total).
  • If you want to use several colors for your custom pixel art, manual changes of filament will become tedious, and a MMU may be preferable.

Files naming convention

You will see that the my files may have long names. I try for them to be descriptive enough so that you dont need to open each one to know what it is.

The most confusing one may be the Backcover B because it has many variants. For example:

Backcover B v1.1.0 - NO Tumb Screw - PixcelArt (18x39) - 3mm magnets

• Backcover B: general description of the part.
• v1.1.0: Version of the file (this is for my own tracking).
• NO Tumb Screw: Does not have the slot for the Tumb screw (Meant to be used with a normal M2.5 screw).
• PixcelArt (18x39): Has a 18x39 grid of ∼4mm squares, intended for painting pixel art in the slicer.
• 3mm magnets: Has slots for 3x1mm magnets for magsafe accessories.

Backcover B v1.1.0 - Tumb Screw - BestagonsArt - Magsafe Ring

• Backcover B: general description of the part.
• v1.1.0: Version of the file (this is for my own tracking).
• Tumb Screw: Does have the slot for the Tumb screw.
• BestagonsArt: Has a grid of ∼5mm hexagons, intended for painting pixel art in the slicer.
• Magsafe Ring: Has a slots for a magsafe ring.

Printing recommendations

I only tested the parts in PETG, so be aware if you chose a different material.

Grips

The most important part to be aware of is the Grips. Because this couple parts are gona be flexed a lot, they need to have successive layers crisscrossed (First layer goes in one direction, second goes 90º from the first one, and so on):

• Minimum first layer height: 0.16mm
• Minimum layer height: 0.16mm
• Top/Botton fill pattern: Monotonic
• Materials: TPU and PETG
• Change of filament: Look in the sliced model for the first layer that has “islands with bridges”, like in the picture bellow.

There is only one change of filament for the grips, so it can be easily do without a MMU or a tool changer. You only need to set a change fo filament at a certain layer height.

Horseshoe

The horseshoe will act as a wedge. For this there is small rectangle with a notch where the seam need to be to avoid problems. 

Check that the seam is in the place indicated in the picture bellow.

If you put your seam settings to have them concealed, the slicer should automatically select said notch. If not, there is a tool to paint the seam.

Pixel Art

I made a couple different patterns with grids of squares of ∼4mm. The difference between the (18x39) and the (19x40) grids is for you to choose the one that allows to better center your drawing.

The idea is to use the smart fill tool in PrusaSlicer to paint the individual "pixels" of the grid of the Backcover B (the visible part of the cover once assembled).

I also made a backcover with hexagons, so you can experiment with that one instead.

For reference, here is an image of the smart fill tool:

The slicer will recognize the painted pixels as individuals spots, and will fill them as such. Meanwhile, the pixels that are in the same filament color that the rest of the backcover will be recognized as one part, and the slicer will be fill them all at once. The result is the following pattern:

Pattern in the slicer: 

Pattern printed on an Ender 5 S1 (manual change of filament, no MMU)

As you can see, the color scheme that you chose will have an impact in the final result. A dark color as background with pixels of light color may be produce some inconsistencies, so keep that in mind.

Assembly

Start by taking your selected Backcover B and add the magsafe ring (or 3x1mm magnets. Nothing is also an option).

Take the Grip A and Grip B . Keep in mind that there is a version of the Grip B depending if you use the Thumb screw or not.

Put both grips in the back cover, as shown in the picture.

Put the Backcover A as shown in the picture. There are screw ports that need to be aligned.

Take two Nuts and screw them with your hand, as shown in the picture.

Take the horse Horseshoe and insert by hand wile applying pressure

The Horseshoe has a special shape so it acts a wedge to keep the to back covers in place. 

Now just add the CMF Phone 2 Pro - Lens adapter (Original) and that's it. Go and pic your screw driver and add the foldable gamepad to your CMF Phone 2 Pro.

How to use

The grips can rotate in and out of the cover. Once out, fold the grips:

• Folding backwards: following the red pats in the picture bellow. This fold is preferable for when you are staring down at your phone.
• Folding frontward: following the blue pats in the picture bellow. This fold is preferable for when you are staring up at your phone, like when lying in your bed.

For more reference, here is a short video:

This foldable gamepad its a remix of the CMF Phone 2 Pro Universal Cover to which I added a back cover using 3D printed screws. In between these two I attached two foldable grips.

The design of the compliant grip is based on the Flat Stowable Ice-Scraper. The folding tracks where modified to suit my needs, but you can still see the resemblance. The other mayor modifications is that, the grips needs to be printed with to materials (TPU and PETG) wile the ice scraper its designed to be printed using only PETG. For that reason the depth of the tracks was changed, and some small connections between the "patches" where made to prevent delamination in the layer where the materials change.