Needed a second phone to take the picture. Ignore my lard ass in the reflection.

Now it just so happens we have a van that desperately needs a phone mount. We've previously used floppy cup holder designs and those flimsy nonsense adapters that attach to the driver's side air vents. None of them work properly, and they're all trash. They only fuel my road rage and actively add unnecessary distractions.

I've purchased numerous car mounts from ProClipsUSA over the years. They make solid products for practically every phone and vehicle on the market. The only real downside is that you can spend upwards of $70 for a complete mount package.

One of the cool things about owning a 3D printer, is that you can create actual things from your cloudy brain thoughts. The obvious requirements outside a printer are varying degrees of 3D design skills and your own creativity. Thankfully, I'm just good enough at CAD to create simplistic homegrown solutions.

v3 (final version) pictured

Don't get me wrong, though. 3D printing isn't something you can simply jump into and expect it to solve all your problems. If nothing else, they provide a stiff lesson in humility and patience. They're also incredible at shoving design failures in your face with a slow, plastic-extruding reality.

Luckily, this final v3 design didn't cause too many problems. It only took a few prototypes and a couple of hours of work. I'm not going to publish the STLs on Thingiverse, but let me know if you want a copy. They were designed to snug fit a OnePlus 7 Pro with a minimalist case and won't necessarily work with anything else.

This is an older version. v3 has holes that actually line up and a 20° upward angle.