Print In Place Tripod Phone Gripper
Long ago I stumbled upon a swath of disused tripods hidden around my work that I wanted to use, but lacked the necessary attachments and of course, didn’t want to spend any of my own money to make them usable. This kicked off the quest that led me here, starting with a very simple phone gripper design before morphing into a project to create a top-down photography attachment.
With everything I design, I try my best to abide by a set of principles that I think best embodies the spirit of universal 3D printing:
No support material or as little as possible
Doesn’t require non-printed components
And this design is the best embodiment of those goals so far; One file. Two components. Zero assembly.
The Print In Place Tripod Phone Gripper!
The Design
My Tripod Phone Gripper (TPG) is comprised of only two components that are constrained to allow finite linear motion. No support material is needed, and at most only an elastic band and a 1/4” thread nut are required.
The linear motion is achieved where the slide component is sandwiched inside two parallel rails that have two 45° angled faces enabling them to be printed without support.
Rails with a 0.2mm offset.
Rails with a 0.5mm offset.
On the underside of the gripper (in the printed orientation), a central spine is recessed into the body with hooked ends for holding the elastic band while keeping it recessed to reduce wear and tear.
Longitudinal section view showing the elastic band attachment point.
Assembly
Once the part has been removed from the build plate, simply attach the elastic band as shown below.
Application
There are several variations of the design depending on how you want to mount them to the tripod, but they all work the same: Pull open the slide and insert your phone. Easy.
The primary design uses a 1/4” thread nut to attached to the tripod as this is the most common, but there’s also a threaded version, blank version and one with an integrated tripod base. I didn’t have any luck printing a 1/4” thread as it’s so fine, but maybe you’ll have more success than me.
