My 04 Avensis still has a tape deck in it, which is never used. And I needed somewhere to mount my phone without doing to many alterations or messing around with the dash. This solution worked a treat. All you need is a coat hanger, pliers, a tape cassette, some tape and about 10 mins.
Cut a nice long straight piece from the bottom of the wire coat hanger and begin to bend it into shape depending on the size of your phone.
I hate having to take my phone out of its leather holder everytime I want to dock it somewhere, so I just measured the bends with the phone still in the leather case and so now the whole lot can just be dropped in snug.
Just mark where you want to bend and place the pliers a few mill below that point and bend.
The very first bend is the bit that will be in the front of the screen, stopping it from falling forward.
The next bend is the depth (thickness) of the phone.
The next bend is the width of the phone.
Now you should have a rectangle that your phone slides into smoothly.
Now make a bend just a little bit in form the edge, and down the way. This is the length that will run down the front of the phone screen. So you don't want to make this bend to far over as it will invade to much of your screen, just make it enough to stop the phone from falling forward.
Now at the bottom you need to bend it back the way. This is the bit that the phone will sit on, stopping it from falling through.
How far down do you make this bend?
I'd say about a 1/3 the length of the phone will be enough, but you could go up to half the length of the phone or more if you like, but then you will be invading more of your screen.
Now make a bend which will divert the wire up the back of the phone. This bend will be the thickness of the phone. At this point you should be able to slide your phone into the holder part.
Now you just need to bend it back across the top of the first bit and then bend that into the L shape that will get taped to the cassette.
Excuse the bendy bit I'm left with. But you get the idea.
Now you can see my first 2 attempts. One of them is the one I have described here, which is quick, simple and works well. The other is a second and more elaborate effort with a bit more stability.
Just tape the "L" shape bit to a cassette and slide the cassette into the Tape Deck. Don't push it all the way in, you dont want it to accept the tape and start playing it, just slide it in enough to hold in place.
If you have no tape deck and want to adapt for a cd player, this should work.
Its hard to be specific for the CD Player as the set up on every car is different. The opening will be slighter taller in some than others, the opening will be set back deeper in some than others, and whats above and below the opening in terms of buttons etc will vary so much also, so their is a lot of room for variation.
But essentially you want to use the weight of the phone to your advantage. When the phone goes in to the holder, you want the weight of the phone to tilt the hanger slightly forward so that the whole unit is being held in by its own weight.
Here I have quickly adapted my first attempt for the cassette deck and it sits nicely in CD slot of my mates Focus.
I went up to the shop with it in like this and it never budged.
Step 9: CD Player Cont.
You could also reverse it and have the phone sitting above the slot rather than below it, but be careful not to position it in front of a vent, otherwise you'll quickly overheat the phone.
The photo below shows when I just flipped the holder upside down, I couldn't put the phone in without re-bending the entire holder, but using my fingers I put plenty of downward pressure on it and it was very stable.
The diagrams (sorry they're sideways) try to explain the theory so that you can adapt to your own setup. You don't want to go TOO FAR into the slot as there are all sort of things that could happen, you could activate the rollers that usually pull the CD in, or maybe even damage the lens.
But by just going in about 15mm or 20mm you should be safe.
If you have Sugru you could coat the Pressure Points and the rubberised coating would add even more grip.
All the people who are commenting about the weather conditions, is it not a simple step to unplug the make shift device during such weather conditions and store in glove box. When driving again use it again, after all the people who are trying this kind of solutions do not want to spend money on devices made by others and do something themselves, I think we should not be so lazy to avoid a 2 simple steps every day and increase the longevity of the product YOU made.
While this seems like a good idea, your phone will shut down when it gets too cold as well. I know from experience that the air coming directly out of the AC vent will be much too cold for your phone.
depends on what you've got running, with a gps enabled app running, in the summer, with a charger plugged in, it can be hard for the AC to overcool a phone. Of course I always had a case on my phone, which holds some heat in, but you could always direct the vent partially away from the phone part of the time if you decided it was getting too cold. Without putting it right in front of the vent, my old phone would shut down due to overheating in the summer, in the car, running a gps based app with the charger plugged in.
You're right, a case would definitely make a difference. I had my bare iPhone plugged in with the GPS that overcooled more than once during the summer.
There's another problem with that solution: Condensation.
Guess what will happen when one leaves the car, and picks up the, by now, ice-cold phone.
Cold objects in a warmer surrounding will collect quite a bit of water in form of condensation. I'm speaking of experience here.
Just look at that cold beverage on the table. Do you see all those water drops that slowly grows on the outside?
Same thing will happen to that newly chilled down gadget. And if that isn't enough, it'll collect condensation on the inside too.
Water + live electronics = funny stuff.
my area is so dry, that isn't really a problem. if the phone gets cold to the touch, I can always switch the AC to blow air in another area, or just close that vent partially.
Great idea and instructable! One idea - use Plastidip to coat the metal. That stuff is made exactly for applications like this.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I use my cassette more often than my cd player anymore.
nice idea...I agree with rubberizing the pressure points so that it does not damage the drive mechanisms. As a somewhat-purist, nothing beats analog sound provided you have kept your cassettes in decent condition.
Cool! Great idea! Again, Is there a way you could do this with a CD player without breaking the CD player?
I've added some mods to the end which might help.
nice - need one for my cd player.