Smartphones have supplanted cameras in day to day use for the vast majority of purposes. However, unlike cameras, they don’t come with tripod mounts or any real good way of holding them in a set position. [Mrballeng] has built an excellent mount, however, that uses cable to hold a smartphone in all manner of positions, for photography or other purposes.
The mount relies on vinyl-coated steel cable. Upon this cable are slotted four blocks that are 3D printed out of resin. The blocks are also fitted with strong magnets. This allows them to be positioned along the vinyl cable while sticking themselves in place thanks to the magnetic attraction to the steel core. The blocks can also be used to attach the cable to magnetic objects like drywall screws or light fittings.
Using the mount is simple. The cable is wrapped around the phone and the blocks cinched up to hold it in place. Then, the magnets in the blocks can be used to hold the phone to walls or other surfaces.
It’s a tidy build, and one we can imagine using regularly if we had one. Of course, there’s no reason you couldn’t produce the parts on a more common filament-based printer, either. We’ve seen some other great smartphone photography hacks too, like this mod that lets you use your phone as a microscope for under $10. Video after the break.
On a tangent: would it be possible to click the magnets to the build plate (maybe after printing a first layer for position) then embed them in the print, thereby omitting the entire pushing them in step?
I’m not entirely sure how SLA works but I think it projects an image from below, so the magnet would block the light directly above it. In FDM you can easily make it captive by throwing the magnet inside a loose hole (hope your printhead has no iron parts in the hotend or close to it lol) then having the printer close the hole. but ideally you’d want the magnets touching each other
Never ever strap a modern smartphone to a vibrating thing like a bike. The auto focus mechanism really doesn’t like it at all. Unless you hate your camera don’t do this. There are cameras designed for this sort of abuse and smartphones typically aren’t those.
I put thousands of miles on a bike with an iphone on the handlebars and have had zero problems with the camera.
I was looking at the instructable for the levitating magnets, and guess what I saw linked below the how-to? Yep, it was this thing. Low hanging fruit I guess?
What about gecko mat?