RCinNC
Well-Known Member
I decided to put an old Droid Turbo into service as a GPS unit on my bike, but I wanted to be able to waterproof it so I didn’t have to worry about rain, or water crossings. I’ve done the plastic sandwich bag routine in the past, but I don’t like it (plus I wanted something that was actually waterproof), so I began looking around for something I could repurpose into a waterproof case. I stumbled on a fly fishing accessory that fit the bill perfectly.
The item is a Maximumcatch two sided waterproof fly box; it’s what fly fishermen use to hold their flies. I bought the large one, from Amazon, for about 13 bucks.
This is what the box looks like in its pristine state. And here’s what I did to adapt it to the cell phone:
The first thing was to remove the foam that holds the flies in the box. The foam was removed from both sides of the box. I didn’t want the foam in the box, even though it provided some cushioning, because I wanted to be able to open the cover on the box if necessary and I didn’t want the phone falling out.
Those holes you see around the edges of the floor of the box aren’t there when it’s new; I drilled those in the box in order to attach some parts later on.
Next, I removed one of the lids. The boxes are two sided, with a watertight lid on both sides, but I only needed one side. I pushed out the hinge pin with a small drill bit until I could get a hold of it with some needlenose pliers, and then pulled the pin out far enough to remove one of the lids. I’d recommend either taking the lid off or covering it with masking tape while you’re working, to keep it from getting scratched.
Each door has a latch, and one has to be removed. I did the same thing as with the lid; pulled out the pin far enough to take off the latch (on the same side of the box as the removed lid).
The rubber gasket was removed from the gasket channel on the unused side of the box. This is the side where eventually the ball mount will be installed. I’m going to hang onto it and keep it in my spares box, in case the remaining one ever leaks.
I removed the inner wall of the gasket channel on ball mount side of the case the with an Olfa knife and a set of hobbyist sprue cutters. You don’t have to do this; I just did it because I thought it would look better on the finished product.
Here’s the ball mount side of the case, sanded down flush.
This is the magnetic plate, that actually holds the cell phone in place inside the mount when the lid is open. The magnets came from one of those cell phone mounts that you stick into the CD player slot in a car, and a metal plate you stick on the back of the phone holds the phone to a magnet on the mount. I had an old one laying around that was about to get thrown away, so I cannibalized the magnetic part of the mount. The plate is made out of 1/8” ABS sheet, and I cut a hole in the center that was the same shape as the magnetic mount. I glued the magnetic mount to the plate with Weld-On, and reinforced it with JB Weld.
This is the rear of the magnetic plate. The white plastic is .030 polystyrene. It’s there as a shim, to get the cell phone to the correct height so that, when the lid is closed, the lid itself holds the cell phone in place to it can’t move around at all.
Just a close up of the magnets.
This is the mounting plate for the RAM ball, made from 1/4” ABS. The side you see here is the side that faces out from the mount. I used a piece that thick mainly because it makes it possible to recess all the attachment nuts into the plate so they don’t stick up anywhere. It just makes it a little more streamlined. The six #6 nuts around the perimeter of the plate were placed into 3/8” recesses drilled into the plastic with a Forstner bit. I bored about halfway through the 1/4” sheet; that’s deep enough to get the machine nuts below the surface of the sheet. Once the machine nuts were in the recessed holes, they were fixed in place with JB Weld. The squares were cut out of the plate just to make it a little lighter.
This is the other side of the plate. Those are #8 machine nuts, set into 3/8” recessed holes and fixed in place with super glue and accelerator. There wasn’t much clearance between the flats on the nuts and the recessed holes, so I used superglue that would flow easier into the holes and around the flats, rather than the thicker JB Weld.
This is the case with the magnetic plate and the mounting plate installed. The screws go through the six holes in the magnetic plate, through the case, and into the recessed nuts on the mounting plate. I ran beads of RTV silicone adhesive/sealant around all the screw holes and on the undersides of the screw heads, to maintain the watertight seal of the case.
This is a standard 1” RAM ball mount with a diamond base, installed on the mounting plate. The ball cost $6.99 on Amazon.
This is what the case looks like from the front with the magnetic plate installed.
Here’s the Droid Turbo in the case. The magnets are pretty strong; I wouldn’t trust them alone if I was bouncing down a potholed road on the bike, but they actually aren’t what holds the phone in place when you’re riding; the lid of the case does that. The magnets do hold the phone inside the case, even when the case is vertical, when the lid is open.
This is what the active phone looks like through the lid of the case. The clarity of the plastic is excellent, with no distortion.
And here it is, mounted on my handlebars.
I have $20 in the project, though I did already have the magnetic phone mount. I also have sheet plastic on hand from a zillion other projects I’ve done, so I didn’t have to buy any for this one.
As always, I post these DIY projects in case there’s another nut out there like me, who wanders through hardware stores looking at aluminum angle and plumbing supplies and wonders “hmmm, what can I make out of this?”.
The item is a Maximumcatch two sided waterproof fly box; it’s what fly fishermen use to hold their flies. I bought the large one, from Amazon, for about 13 bucks.
This is what the box looks like in its pristine state. And here’s what I did to adapt it to the cell phone:
The first thing was to remove the foam that holds the flies in the box. The foam was removed from both sides of the box. I didn’t want the foam in the box, even though it provided some cushioning, because I wanted to be able to open the cover on the box if necessary and I didn’t want the phone falling out.
Those holes you see around the edges of the floor of the box aren’t there when it’s new; I drilled those in the box in order to attach some parts later on.
Next, I removed one of the lids. The boxes are two sided, with a watertight lid on both sides, but I only needed one side. I pushed out the hinge pin with a small drill bit until I could get a hold of it with some needlenose pliers, and then pulled the pin out far enough to remove one of the lids. I’d recommend either taking the lid off or covering it with masking tape while you’re working, to keep it from getting scratched.
Each door has a latch, and one has to be removed. I did the same thing as with the lid; pulled out the pin far enough to take off the latch (on the same side of the box as the removed lid).
The rubber gasket was removed from the gasket channel on the unused side of the box. This is the side where eventually the ball mount will be installed. I’m going to hang onto it and keep it in my spares box, in case the remaining one ever leaks.
I removed the inner wall of the gasket channel on ball mount side of the case the with an Olfa knife and a set of hobbyist sprue cutters. You don’t have to do this; I just did it because I thought it would look better on the finished product.
Here’s the ball mount side of the case, sanded down flush.
This is the magnetic plate, that actually holds the cell phone in place inside the mount when the lid is open. The magnets came from one of those cell phone mounts that you stick into the CD player slot in a car, and a metal plate you stick on the back of the phone holds the phone to a magnet on the mount. I had an old one laying around that was about to get thrown away, so I cannibalized the magnetic part of the mount. The plate is made out of 1/8” ABS sheet, and I cut a hole in the center that was the same shape as the magnetic mount. I glued the magnetic mount to the plate with Weld-On, and reinforced it with JB Weld.
This is the rear of the magnetic plate. The white plastic is .030 polystyrene. It’s there as a shim, to get the cell phone to the correct height so that, when the lid is closed, the lid itself holds the cell phone in place to it can’t move around at all.
Just a close up of the magnets.
This is the mounting plate for the RAM ball, made from 1/4” ABS. The side you see here is the side that faces out from the mount. I used a piece that thick mainly because it makes it possible to recess all the attachment nuts into the plate so they don’t stick up anywhere. It just makes it a little more streamlined. The six #6 nuts around the perimeter of the plate were placed into 3/8” recesses drilled into the plastic with a Forstner bit. I bored about halfway through the 1/4” sheet; that’s deep enough to get the machine nuts below the surface of the sheet. Once the machine nuts were in the recessed holes, they were fixed in place with JB Weld. The squares were cut out of the plate just to make it a little lighter.
This is the other side of the plate. Those are #8 machine nuts, set into 3/8” recessed holes and fixed in place with super glue and accelerator. There wasn’t much clearance between the flats on the nuts and the recessed holes, so I used superglue that would flow easier into the holes and around the flats, rather than the thicker JB Weld.
This is the case with the magnetic plate and the mounting plate installed. The screws go through the six holes in the magnetic plate, through the case, and into the recessed nuts on the mounting plate. I ran beads of RTV silicone adhesive/sealant around all the screw holes and on the undersides of the screw heads, to maintain the watertight seal of the case.
This is a standard 1” RAM ball mount with a diamond base, installed on the mounting plate. The ball cost $6.99 on Amazon.
This is what the case looks like from the front with the magnetic plate installed.
Here’s the Droid Turbo in the case. The magnets are pretty strong; I wouldn’t trust them alone if I was bouncing down a potholed road on the bike, but they actually aren’t what holds the phone in place when you’re riding; the lid of the case does that. The magnets do hold the phone inside the case, even when the case is vertical, when the lid is open.
This is what the active phone looks like through the lid of the case. The clarity of the plastic is excellent, with no distortion.
And here it is, mounted on my handlebars.
I have $20 in the project, though I did already have the magnetic phone mount. I also have sheet plastic on hand from a zillion other projects I’ve done, so I didn’t have to buy any for this one.
As always, I post these DIY projects in case there’s another nut out there like me, who wanders through hardware stores looking at aluminum angle and plumbing supplies and wonders “hmmm, what can I make out of this?”.