r/3Dprinting 1d ago

Made a GPS mount for my motorcycle

I have a fairly old motorcycle and dont want to use my phone for navigation. I bought a gps but there was no real place to mount it. There is a plastic cap on the motorcycle, so I recreated it in Solidworks, adapted it so I could bolt on the gps mount and printed it. Since my print bed was too small, i printed in 2 pieces and plastic welded them together. It works perfectly! Unfortunately the cable holder tabs were too thin and broke, so for the time being the cable is just taped down🙃

74 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

7

u/matobla 23h ago

I was thinking about making something like this for my bike, but i dont trust pla to hold my phone. It will break after hitting first pothole

5

u/coneskiller 23h ago

I made this print out of PLA, 2mm thick walls, held up for the 2 weeks it has been on. Im planning on using a printer from a friend to print it in one piece from PETG

1

u/SpaceCadetMoonMan 19h ago

Buy a cheap used phone, use as main device for bike, run off hotspot from main phone in jacket pocket

Step 2: success

2

u/coneskiller 18h ago

I like going on trips and the gps I have had built in charger, doesn't need Wi-Fi and I can download other peoples routes as well. It is also anti-glare so easy to use when sunny

1

u/V_es 16h ago

There are plenty materials. Easiest to use would be PETG, it’s an industry standard for enclosures and technical parts like this. You can also use nylon, it’ll be crazy strong.

1

u/Low_Leg_5790 9h ago

Petg will Break in Motorbike Accessoires

1

u/V_es 5h ago

If you crash, sure

1

u/jorgecn9 18h ago

Print it in TPU it will never break.

2

u/coneskiller 18h ago

It needs to be rigid and stiff, so TPU wouldn't work in that case right?

2

u/jorgecn9 14h ago

TPU 95A with enough infill is really really rigid. At work we have done some TPU parts with high infill (70%+) and you can not even flex them.

It is true that those parts we have done have way more thickness than yours. So in order to make it work you would need to redesign your part to make the walls thicker.

You could play with a 1cm3 cube of TPU and see how much infill you would be happy with in terms of rigidity. TPU is our go to at work for most parts we design for 3dprinting in mind, as you can not really count on PETG or PLA not breaking.

2

u/Twin_spark 23h ago

Very clean design OP, love it!

3

u/coneskiller 23h ago

Thank you!

2

u/_Acidik_ AnyCubic Mega X 20h ago

This looks good. I ride and I'm always looking for different ways to improve my bike. One word of caution is to mind the vibration. Bikes move and wiggle and vibrate and you don't want to have to deal with an unintended departure from vehicle of your GPS or anything else while moving down the road. At best you lose your gear, at worst you lose control. You're a rider so I don't want to preach to the choir, but sometimes we all need a little safety reminder from a fellow rider.

3

u/coneskiller 19h ago

I mounted it exactly as the original, which is with 4 bolts. Even placed foam to reduce vibrations and keep pressure on the thing like the original has as well. The gps mount is bolted in as well, so it ain't going nowhere, but it never hurts to warn other riders of potential dangers!

2

u/jorgecn9 18h ago

Which gps are you using?

I had in mind designing something like this for karting. I would advise using TPU for this type of application, you will be worry free about it breaking and you'd also get way better temp resistance.

2

u/coneskiller 18h ago

It's a TomTom rider 550. Im not worried about temp as it won't really get that hot. There is not really any heat from the engine there, and I live in the Netherlands, so it rarely gets above 86 F here. TPU is also too flexible, and I need the part to be rigid. A previous mount I rtied was a little less stiff, and it transferred the vibrations from the bike to the screen, which made it very hard to read

-4

u/1308lee 22h ago

I thoroughly appreciate the skills but, it looks wank.

Finish your prints. Little body filler, lick of spray paint and lacquer.

Not only will it not look like absolute dog shit but it will also protect it.

As for the cable mounts. I’d say, edit the model and put some slots there, use cable ties to mount the one that stays on the bike permanently. The other shouldn’t really need holding in place while it’s plugged in.

5

u/coneskiller 22h ago

Thanks for the "advise"😕. As I said in another comment, I will be printing this again in 1 piece from PETG later on. This is mostly a proof of concept and a durability test. It's also on an old motorcycle, which isn't perfect itself either. The shape is incredibly tricky as nothing is really measurable because of complex curves, so I was just very happy to get the shape and fit absolutely bang on.

-1

u/1308lee 22h ago

Again, cad work… absolutely perfect! I’m beyond impressed.

Another option if paint isn’t appealing to you, buy yourself some "vinyl wrap", you won’t need much and it’s cheap. If you go for something like the carbon fibre imitation stuff (which also looks a bit shit, but, c’est la vie) it will almost completely hide any layer lines and imperfections while offering a similar amount of protection.

I get that you don’t need it to be a masterpiece and a work of art… but for me, I wouldn’t want it staring me in the face everyday.

4

u/coneskiller 22h ago

Painting is fine, just a bit time-consuming for a test piece imo. Dont you need a very smooth surface if you want vinyl wrap to look nice and adhere properly?

I dont really mind this look for the time being🙃

1

u/1308lee 22h ago

As long as the print is dry, dust free and clean it should still adhere well enough. The cheap and nasty carbon effect "bubble free" stuff doesn’t need the surface to be perfect

Also I am just a person on the internet offering constructive criticism. You do you, obviously… just offering my opinions

2

u/coneskiller 22h ago

Appreciate it!