VW ashtray Samsung S7 holder by brainwash

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This was mostly an exercise in design, but you might find it useful. The part is designed to fit into the ashtray "liner" that's present on select Volkswagen cars and to hold a Samsung Galaxy S7 with TPU case (~1mm thick).
Previously, I just had the phone in my ashtray, where it picked up gum pieces as well as fell over on each tight curve. For reference, the VW Phaeton uses this style of ashtray.
Features:
front slot is at an angle (instead of vertical), for better visibility
back slot can be used for trash, small coins, etc.
phone does not tip over
no modifications required to the vehicle.
if S7 is upside-down, it should not cover the luminance/proximity sensor
can fit any phone up to 71mm wide and 9.3mm thick
without a phone, the ashtray can still be retracted
Instructions:
Printed with supports and draft on a CTC Dual, infill 15-25%, PLA. The poor surface finish is due to using MatterControl instead of MakerBot - the supports and drafts are MUCH easier to remove, but surfaces are very poor. The looks do not matter much as not much can be seen from this piece.
You can probably print it without support if you do it upside-down and at a slow speed.
Design - boring details:
This is the fourth (and hopefully final) iteration of the design. Designed from scratch in OnShape, there were quite a few tricky features.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/cc55c181ce8d564912fe38cc/w/da8cd6e94c5749adddeaf22b/e/99bf5ca6b680376770f89e83
First, all the walls are drafted, but at a different angle. Then, there are two round protrusions in the front that need to be cleared. Also, the edges inside the ashtray liner are filleted(?). The insert has to clear the top edge, as the ashtray has a lip pressing on top, when retracted. You can see it peeking (silver/chrome) behind the plastic caliper in the car photo.
Having just the phone inside the wasteful, so the back pocket was added for extra storage.
The walls are pretty thin, but this allows some flex. As much material was added as it made sense for strength, but not more. For example the front lip is thickened to avoid breakage, but this has the minor disadvantage of covering up a light-pipe.
Most of the dimensions are driven, so you can modify it to fit your car and/or phone, you can ask me how to do that, it takes a couple of minutes. If you know your way around OnShape, most of the dimensions are on "top view sketch".