phone surface mount for car

This is a remix of Duane's excellent Car Phone Holder.

I made a few changes:

• Body slimmed down about 30% to 10.5mm thick
• Added deep arm to hold phone with thicker case - can fit phone up to 16mm thick 
• Added a ball joint to the back panel, to allow angle adjustment
• Included a surface attached ball joint mount

===== To print =====

Like anything that goes into car, do not use PLA. At least use PETG, and if you can print ABS or ASA those will be most resistant to the summer heat in car. 

Most nozzle should work, there should be no need  for support 

Same tolerance as Duane's model, so make sure to enable elephant feet compensation or clean up elephant feet on the arms for smooth action 

Due to the slim body - most part of the spacer is 0.3mm thick. Use either 0.15 or 0.3mm layer height for the spacer

===== Alt files =====

There are 3 deeper arms meant for phone with thicker case

Also one body with cutout on the top, this is meant for phones that has ring holder attached. Those ring holder can add considerable thickness and this cutout may help fitting phones with it if the ring's location is right.

===== To assemble =====

The assemble of the phone case is exactly the same as Duane's model. Check his page for how to assemble the phone mount

I use 4x m3 8mm screw for the phone mount - 10mm may be too long already 

The assembly of surface ball joint can be seen in this pic

I use #10 x 1" bolt and #10 nut to assemble the surface mount.  

===== install =====

It is always tricky to install these on cars curved surface. I found the best thing to use is the 3m Dual Lock tape. It is like a super strong velcor and the gap caused by the slight curve and strage surface does not cause much problem in the holding power much if at all. 

Test fit the car mount with phone to find the right location and adjust to correct angle, then put a piece of dual lock tape at the location of the base, and dual lock tape at the bottom of the pad of the ball joint. That should hold it nice and securely. 

===== Update  Jan 2025 ======

Added an alternative back plate for 17mm ball mount. 17mm seems to be a popular size for commercially available ball mount for car use, so you can fit this phone mount to existing ball mount in your car. 

Parts are separated, body slimmed down, added ball joint to the rear panel, also added a surface ball joint mount