Gravity Phone Holder

I found this wonderful little thingy, gravity phone holder, and I just love it! I am planning to clean up my charging station, putting peg board on the wall and put all my devices there, I hate when they lay around the table. I want to have gravity holders for my phones and tablet, so here's my first one, phone holder number one!

There's alot of pics, hope they help!

What you will need.. well, actually what you will need may depend
what kind of changes you want to make to this design and what materials you can get, but here's what I used!

Wood sticks. These are like large popsicle sticks. I also have paint mixing sticks for my tablet holder, but I'm not using them here.You will be needing 4 sticks per holder but we are going to cut two of them.

Drawer knobs from IKEA, seems that they don't make these anymore, so you can use whatever you wish. Actually, my first plan was put long screws, some nuts and just put clear tubing on top of it.You will be needing 6 of them, whatever you will use.

Screws, nuts, washers. Plenty.

Some very nice, soft extension springs, it would be nice if you had two of the same, one to each side, but I didn't and it seems just one works quite well.

Heat-shrink tube, I had clear, because I like my knobs, but it really doesn't matter in the end. Use what you like or have!

Some tape. You'll see!

You will be needing various tools.

Some kind of drill to drill holes.

Piece of wood for drilling if you don't have actual place to do drilling or you are too lazy or just too excited to go there.

Something to heat the heat-shrink tube.

Something to measure with.

Something to mark with. I have centre punch, you can have pencil if you have that and like it better.

Tiny saw or some other thing to shape wood sticks. Like knife?

File or sandpaper would be nice too for shaping and finishing.

You might need screwdriver to tighten the knobs in the end.

I'm going to star with the fun part! Putting seat-shrink tube to knobs!

So, the knobs I'm using are hard plastic and the thingy I'm building should have something that helps phone to stay there, so to have rubbery feel to the knobs, I am putting heat-shrink tube. I had clear one, so that worked wonderfully with my pretty knobs!

I am lucky to have hot air soldering.. iron? so that really made this thing easy and fun. What ever thing you are using to shrink the tube, be careful, don't burn yourself, don't burn down the house, you don't even need to do them all at once, take your time!

I am having alot of knobs to cover, since I am doing 3 of these things in the end.

Some of the tubes were a bit long, but that's better than have them too short and get annoyed by it! You just cut the extra away.

Additional edit: Alex in NZ have some really awesome ideas for grips! First is to put something squishy under seat-shink tube to enhance the grip. I think that making them padded would really help holding the phone.

And the next one is, this is so amazing idea: rubber bands insted of heat-shrink tube!

-You can find rubber bands anywhere.

-There's SO MANY colors!

-You don't need heat to put them on.

-They itself would be rubbery, squishy cushion to help to hold the phone!

What I had originally in mind changed a bit on the way. I was going to make it without the bottom bar, but I like it better with the change. I drilled holes with 4.5 mm drill bit, so the screws I'm using are loose in the holes. I do believe I had 4 mm screws here.

So! Find the middle! Mark it, pencil is fine, I just like my centre punch. It gives nice dent to drill bit to fall when you are placing it to drill. Stack all your sticks PLUS ONE stick and tape them to tight pack so they stay together when you drill. Also find a nice place to drill holes to the ends of the sticks. I tried to measure it to be in the center of the end arc.

Drill against something solid that doesn't matter if it gets holes. Piece of wood is nice.

When you have drilled the holes and unpack the sticks, you'll se why we had the extra one. It's hole's exit wound looks kind of depressingly messy, but the one under it is just fine!

We need to cut two of the sticks shorter, right after the middle hole. One of my sticks cracked while drillig, so that end is going to discard pile! I drew the line with the help of another stick's end. Cut, shape, use some nice sanding paper to smooth it and we're done here!

Because I changed the model I used the discarded end pieces and made the bottom bar by just rounding the end and drillig hole to the rounded end like I did to stick pile earlier.

Additional edit:

Here you can see how I changed my plan. On the left in the first pic there's my new and improved model and on the right is the original what I thought I would do. I was suppouse to put knobs somewhere in the middle of the shorter bar, but I like my new design better.

I put it all loosely together with screws so that I can test it. I put a spring there and knobs, even though they are very loose right now, but they hold so I can test this thing!

And it works! Really, it works! You can also see here why I need quite massive phone holders for my charging station. I like the design, because it's usable in one hand, you can put the phone and take it off easily onehanded, the spring is suppouse to open the mechanism when the weight of the phone lifts, and you can have the cable on without worrying it not to hit the right spot.

The spring needs to be soft enough to let phone's weight to move the thing and strong enough to pull the mechanism back together when the weight lift.

So, ok.. Now we need to get the knobs sit nice and tight against the sticks. I know there's alot of washers, you might get nicely by with alot less, but I just happen to like washers. ;)

First I tried a bit shorten screw, because what those knobs had, were just too long. These screws had smaller heads and it didn't work at all. They were not stable. So I ended up cutting those knob screws shorter and that made a big difference!

And now there is: Screw, washer to protect the stick, the stick, washer to protect, nut, and heres the thing, do NOT screw the nut all the way to washer when you put it on, that is a joint and it needs to move freely, that nut is there to tighten the knob against next stick. So, back to out assebly.. we had the nut, so then washer, another stick and the knob! Tighten the knob and nut together.

When you assemble this:

5 extra points for all the assembles you do and then notice it's in the wrong place and

10 extra points if you assemble the bottom circle, that is bottom bar and everything till the middle joint between two long sticks, and notice that the upper hands are in the middle and you can't get them through everything and you need to take something apart to move everything in their right place!

Top knobs were just tighten against sticks with washers on the back side, and where the spring is attached, it's back of the top knob on the one end and slipped somewhere in the assembly of the joint on the other end.

I am so sorry I don't have anything better to offer you for the hanging of the thingy, I am going to put it through peg board hole, so I am just going to use center screw for that. This was anyway ment to get you going, and you can always find the best solution for you to hang it. Go! Have fun! Make amazing gravity holders and please share your designs! <3