Ford E-450 Class-C "Coinholder" repurpose

[Suprnova74]

I had posted this in the 3d Printing post but it's taking a fair bit of work (primarily due to my inexperience with 3D tools/3D printing) so figured I'd post it's progression in its own thread.

We use a 2-wheel tow dolly when travelling so need to use a brake controller for it as it's electronic brake versus surge. The connector for it is behind the "coinholder". which is this thing:



I initially cut a hole in the back big enough for the connector and then just shoved the brake controller in the opening. That was sufficient for the most part, but then I ran into another issue. I bought a Garmin and I have no convenient place to mount it. Many states can fine you for obstruction of view if something is attached to the windshield so I was initially suctioning it to the rear-view mirror since that's essentially useless anyway. The position wasn't ideal and even though it's not useful, not having the rear view mirror was messing with me. I figured by making my own repurposed coinholder, this could be a great place to better hold the tow controller and have the garmin mounted.

I searched the internet for anything close to the coinholder compartment that I could repurpose -- the clips, the shape, etc -- Nothing. So I fired up Sketchup free for the first time and started playing and after about 3 or 4 days of messing around came up with (one of the first trial prints):


I beefed up the clip thickness and I think it's better. Once I add stuff behind them, I think they'll be more durable as they break pretty easily. If they break once installed, I may need to adjust it or make them replaceable somehow but that's another project.

Next was a holder for the Prodigy P2. I found a holder for the Prodigy P3 on thingiverse so I removed the extraneous bits for a different vehicle and adjusted the size and shape to fit better. I think it worked well. I made it tapered so it's more narrow in the back and the P2 wedges in via sheer tension nicely and doesn't move around. Perfect.


Next is to find a ball-mount for the Garmin and bind them to the frame and another test print before doing the full print. I found one on Thingiverse, stripped everything but the ball and slapped it into my hopefully complete V1.

I had to convert the .stl files to .SKP via Fusion 360 ( I have a subscription via work, conveniently, but have no idea how to use it). For some reason, when I import STL files from thingiverse into Fusion 360, they are scaled up incredibly. I had to scale all of the imported STL's down accordingly which was unexpected. I wonder if I would have needed to do that if I had sketchup pro and could open the STL direclty.

Anway, It's printing now. the only thing I realized is I swapped the garmin and tow controller location. I'm not 100% sure if I'll need to swap them. Hopefully not as it was rather a pain to fill in all the gaps and to add sufficient supports to the tow controller bracket. We'll see in about 12 hours so I can test fit it.



The only issue is I only have PLA filament right now and unsure if I have time to get PETG ordered so it may be short-lived with vehicle heat. I'll be installing it right before we leave for a nice vacation so the RV should be kept cool either via shore power or when driving so don't think that'll be a major issue at least for this trip.

[Suprnova74]

I checked on the print before bed and unfortunately it had a bed adhesion failure. It's reprinting. I chose a raft to help and manually bumped the print speed to 250% (essentially printer max) after the first layer until the bed was done. It still took almost an hour for just the raft but it hasn't popped off when I woke up this morning. I was going to take it to work with me but it still has another 4 hours to go so I guess I'll be taking a trip this weekend to try it out.

[Suprnova74]

I believe my humid basement is causing the bed adhesion issues as the PLA starts to suck up water worse than a sponge.

I bought a gasketed plastic container and found just a wee bit of desiccant at work thanks to a new computer shipment

I'll be throwing the spool in there when I get home. Hopefully that will help eliminate those issues in the future.

.

[Suprnova74]

I printed the equivalent of a brick that last run. I'm not sure if it was the "low quality" selection as I wasn't worried about looks or if I had the support options set poorly, but I could not detach the supports for the life of me. I used nippers, scissors, sheet metal sheers, even a hammer when getting frustrated. That's a lot of wasted materials.

After looking at the Cura preview, it looks like one (or many) of the flaws in the design caused it to think it was open that I didn't catch. I reworked a large portion of the model to fix the odd issues. Went to print it and woke up to about 2 inches of supports printed and then a pile of spaghetti on top of it . I think the white filament has gotten too wet at this point so it's been temporarily retired into the dry box.

I switched to black filament this morning, added a raft just in case and started printing. For anyone opening a new roll, ensure your filament isn't crossed. I came down after about 30 minutes to check on it and saw this:




As I added a raft, it was adding a bit of time. On a whim, i changed the print speed to 200% just to see what it did on the middle layer. You can see the print "look" changed, but I didn't notice much of a change to adhesion, strand thickness or other artifacts so might be ok to change that in the slicer to save time on that stuff. The area on the left is the faster speed.


It's got another 10 or so hours to go on the print so we'll see how it fares tomorrow.

[Suprnova74]

It's been busy as i'm mid-trip, but I got my camper back the day before leaving so it's been packing and prepping and now driving like mad for our PA to TX trip. One more day of driving and we'll be at our final desination in Corpus Christi, TX! Whew.

I did try fitting the printout and unfortunately I did not follow the rule of "measure twice". I neglected to measure the actual opening. The bit for the tow controller was too wide. So the original is back in and I suction-cupped the Garmin to the rear-view mirror. It's ok, but not ideal.

I've been thinking of the design and will probably be reworking it completely while down here. I'm going to add a modular design and have a "boom-arm" style so the garmin can be articulated into any position desired. That portion will be removable via push-pins or screws (haven't decided yet).