Mounting a 7" tablet to my Intruder

Warning: long winded post!!
 
I decided I wanted to mount my small Samsung Galaxy tablet to my bike. Here's how I did it...
 
First I bought a Griffin Survivor silicone case.... Pricey but rugged and very waterproof. But it's a sod getting the tablet in and out, so I needed to leave the tablet in its case, and fashion some kind of mount to hold it on the bike. I had tried a cheap chinese car tablet holder for this purpose,  but it was too bulky, and Sod's law, the gripping parts obstructed the on/off and volume buttons. So after browsing the excellent   www.instructables.com website, I found out how to make your own using a diy form of  thermoplastics.

Step 1: make a cardboard template
 
I wanted my holder cut from a single piece of plastic incorporating a bottom ledge to carry the weight, side lugs to stop the tablet slipping sideways, and a sprung top clip to hold it in place, but allow it to be quickly removable.



 Use a piece of factory cut a4 card, rather than a ragged offcut of a cornflakes box, so you know it's dead square for marking up. Alternatively programmes like PowerPoint can be used to draw rounded rectangles etc with millimetre precision for printing out. I did mine old Skool.
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Step 2. Raw material
Here's the clever bit! Cut a piece of downpipe a bit longer than your template and cut a slot down its length.
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Then bake it in a hot oven on an old baking tray, and TADA, it opens out flat in less than 10 mins. You may have to tease it flat using an oven glove. (If you aren't the cook of the house, maybe wait till they've gone out!). Then while it's still bendy, put it on a flat surface and place a big heavy chopping board or something on it, so it 'sets' dead flat.
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Step 3. Cut it out
Now draw round your template, and use hacksaws, hole saws, dremels etc to cut out your shape (not a jigsaw as it's likely to splinter).

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Step 4. Thermoforming
Make a wood or mdf blank to replicate your tablet (or in my case the silicone skin). Then get a heat gun and one at a time, heat and bend the various tabs... (heavy gloves, scraps of wood etc are useful for the bending)
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Step 5. Fixing to bike
 
Originally I had made a simple angled bracket for this job... But there was a little vibration especially on tickover. So instead I bought a 25mm stainless ball with a threaded m8 hole  from the excellent Essentra Components.  I screwed it onto the centre screen bolt with some washers to pack it out.
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This is compatible with my old RAM mount which is very sturdy and has the bonus of being adjustable.
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Initially the ram mount wouldn't 100% tighten onto the mirror finish ball. So I used some coarse sandpaper to make it satin finish, and bingo!
 
And finally, here is the tablet in situ...


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On the road there was a little glare from the top of the chrome speedo housing. So I did a matt black vinyl wrap on it. 




What a twat of a job that was... Bubbles, wrinkles, you name it. I then tried a heat gun, which made it very soft and pliable, but then brittle when it cooled. I think I've just about got away with it (but I won't be offering to wrap anybody's BMW any time soon!



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OK from a distance !!
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Other thoughts


Some of you may remember a leather screen pocket I made last year. I had to remove that to fit this, so I've replaced that with a piece of black polypropylene 1.5mm sheet and trapped that in the screen hardware, so it follows the curve nicely and shouldn't suffer the same condensation issues as the leather. You can see it here. 
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It's purpose is simply to tidy up the view through the screen from the front.
 
At a later date I may add a little leather pocket either side of the tablet holder. But there's not much space!  If I do I will probably use press studs as I've seen on some commercially made screen pockets. 

Thanks for looking in

Nice one Mal..very ingeneous

WOW Mal, I an seriously impressed.
That is a great bit of ingenuity you used there and very well explained as well. I may have a try at some point of doing that for my tablet (yet another mod of yours I may copy at some point). The leather pockets (LINK) you made a while back were a credit to you but this goes into another realm. Brilliant mod for a satnav, absolutely brilliant.

Very nice job Mal!  well thought out and executed with a cracking write up too! 

Well done Mal! Looks like it will be perfect for the job intended!

Thanks for the feedback chaps. It's obviously not 'factory made' but looks pretty damn good and solves the problem well. The one in the write up is actually version 3... Version 1 was stainless steel, but I struggled to machine that. V2 was plastic as here, but not beefy enough, as I'd cut too much of the back away.

Going to start arsing about with some leather pockets now. Should be able to get them just under 4" x 4" so they'll be ok for cables, and other odds and sods.

Flippin eck bigmal your a clever bloke, I am staggered at how some people mod stuff for stuff   
Ace write up, ace job done 

Ahh ahhh .... the secret is out - I can now see what the card template was all about.

Nice job Mal ..... & a very informative write up  

captain crash wrote:

Flippin eck bigmal your a clever bloke

Not at all mate... I just nicked the idea off 'instructables'. I marvel at the 'heavy engineering' some of our members do... Like the 1400 diff .... No way I would ever try anything like that!

I like the way you modified it to use your existing ram mount. Very neat and tidy especially when not carrying the tablet. Great tip about the downpipe and oven..wouldn't be the first time I could have done with some of that ...

An inspirational idea, exceedingly well executed and put across.

Well done Mal and a good write up.Very impressed.

Will you be using it for the 'Sat Nav' feature in France Mal? or a bit of Surfing whilst on the go?   

ps. just on a safety note pal, keep your eye on the plastic, it sometimes goes brittle after heating and over time 

Good point Sim,Mal you could always use some steel and use the plastic between the steel.

simbo wrote:

Will you be using it for the 'Sat Nav' feature in France Mal? 

Well if I do, I won't be at the front of the pack!! Remember Paul last time bravely volunteering to lead the way with his satnav... Took us 55 minutes to get out of Calais Docks!

Good point about the plastic going brittle. The weak spot will definitely be the spring clip on top, so I'll keep an eye on it

Cracking job Mal! Well done

Nice job Mal.  If you're concerned about the plastic going brittle, is it worth fitting some kind of detachable safety line to the case - if the worst happens, it may stop your tablet bouncing down the road.  Pete had mentioned doing something similar to stop his side-panel disappearing

Yep good idea dave. I'd been thinking along those lines myself. Wondered about using a red hot needle to make a fine hole in the corner silicone buffer?

Excellent job Mal, Instructables is a fantastic site for finding this sort of information, but it,s like you tube... you look at one article and following links you end up miles away at another project 

Do you have a part No. for the mounting knob please, regards Doc Cox.

Hi doc
With the Essentra item, they were only sold in packs, and I only wanted one. But there was a "order a sample" option, which I ticked, expecting to pay, but it was free!!

Here's the link to their page with the various different options... Some stainless, some black, different size threaded holes etc, so you've got a bit of choice.

Link to various items

Im pretty sure the code for the one I got is 498438. It shows a generic black finish in the pic, but it is mirror finish stainless or chrome or something. With hindsight the RAM mount might have gripped better onto black plastic..... Good luck.
  

The idea I have used is quite simple. Go to your local fishing tackle shop & buy some nylon or plastic covered wire tracer links. They come in different length's, 12", !5", 18" etc. 
Principle is you drill or attach in some way one end to the bike's frame or handlebars as in this case & then do the same to the item you don't want to disappear down the road by using say a zip tie or whatever method you find will do the job. I bought mini alloy caribeaner clips from the pound shop or used old key ring rings to fasten through the ring on the tracer & then clip it over the same wire after it went through the panel etc.
I'm going to do this to the side panels on my VL800 as the lockable side can go for a walk while you ride down the road for example. I used this method on my Pan European ST1300's mirror/indicator pods as the are designed to 'pop off' in the case that you catch them or clip something that's not quite as wide as the bike(oops!) for instance & at around £90-00 a pop for the cover(colour coded), £20-00 for the indicator len's etc etc you can see it add's up to a lot of money so at a few quid for a trace link I think it's an excellent modification!

Thanks Peter. I don't fish so I had no idea these things existed... I shall look out for some. I've already got some pound shop carabiners so could be a plan

I found some really small one's to do the job & got I think 6 for a quid? I don't fish either but used the idea from the Pan site.

Anyone ever used vhb tape?

I wondered about fixing one of these to the back of the tablet case with vhb...
Then one of peters fishing thingies could loop through...


Ps, here's a link to some pieces of vhb at a good price I think

Ebay

bigmal wrote:

Anyone ever used vhb tape?

Yeah, things like Tank Badges are stuck on with it, it also comes in varying thicknesses as glazing tape and security tape for externally glazed double glazing units, good stuff but not sure I'd use it for the purpose you have it in mind for.

Might have to be a pop rivet then...

great use of a cheap material like a piece of plastic pipe.

Been thinking about your mod again this morning, love it. Really gives inspiration, I am seriously looking at doing the same. just got to find the things needed as I know nothing about Ram mounts. I had a quick look about last night but am still in a bit of a quandary as to the bits needed as I want one fitted to the center of my handlebars. Will look again later.

There's so many variations with the ram mount.....

For example Heres the bit I bolted to my plastic holder...

Here's the adjustable clamp part


I then simply used the threaded 25mm ball fixed to screen to make up the other end of the assembly. 

But they do all kinds of options... Like handlebar mounts


Good luck with whatever you go for...

Thanks Mal, that's a real help. It really is uncharted water for me but that's a great help.

You're welcome.... I don't really know much about them, I just had the bits left over as they had come as part of my garmin satnav. For me the real bonus is that because the clamp is locking on a ball at both ends you've got a heck of a lot of adjustability. 

Worth a look on ebay. You sometimes get people selling old outdated stuff, but with some RAM components attached,p. It can be a cheap way of getting some of the bits you want. Ebay

OK I  will look for cheap thanks but is this the sort of thing I need? Bike Ram Mount

Yep that looks exactly like the parts I used, but also includes the handlebar mount.

What's frustrating is that the stuff is the same price in dollars in the states... But then the shipping ramps the price back up.

Ebay.com

Great, thanks Mal, I will order now. 

Very clever modification. Thatll be great for using the tablet as a great to use satnav

Currently doing this build for my redundant Nexus tab, this thread is invaluable Sir. Thank you for taking the time to Picture and write, such a comprehensive how-to page.

Instead of that plastic pipe there is a product called Kydex which comes in sheets. Get it hot in the oven or a heat gun and mold away. Its very strong and doesnt give off any smell when heating.
People use it to make gun holsters and stuff. Ebay stocks it, might try it myself theres a few things i want to try making.

Eazy I still need to do mine, how many mil would you recommend as a minimum thickness? It seems to come in A4 size 1mm, 1.5 & 2mm. Would 2mm be enough?

Mr Intruder wrote:

Eazy I still need to do mine, how many mil would you recommend as a minimum thickness? It seems to come in A4 size 1mm, 1.5 & 2mm. Would 2mm be enough?

Check Ebay you can get black A3 size for a tenner or so.
I think 2mm would be fine. Even 1mm is very strong but might flex a bit. I PM'ed you by the way about your saddlebag inserts

 Took pictures but forgot to post will upload tomorrow.

I will be order 2 bits of pieces of A4 tomorrow, as I am thinking of another mod as well. I have been reading up on this Kydex, bloody good stuff, cheers. 

Thanks for your kind comments Ken and Eazy .... Great info re the Kydex... I'd never heard of it  

Actually managed to do mine today, yeah yeah, I know it took me a while but my wife is pleased the end result isn't there in the blink of an eye.  

So here is what I have done, although I didn't do it with a drain pipe, I used a 2mm sheet of Kydex. (availale frome Ebay)
I did as bigmal did & cut a bit of wood to give me an accurate template to bend the Kydex over, with a heat gun. Although I did use a couple of metal rulers, with one either side of the larger folding edges and a pair of mole grips to get a straight bend.
Also used a GoPro type of mount. This was simply because everywhere suitable was alraedy being used. The black stick on mount you can see in the first picture will be there all of the time, wether I have the tablet mounted or not but I can live with that because of the benifits. Obviously when the tablet is on I can't see the speedo but as the satnav has a sppedo of its own, that is no issue.


Not Ideal but as the mounting would be there no matter what but I can live with that because of the benifits I will get.

Here are a few different views of the finished project.

Ha Ha I can see why you had to put the bracket on the speedo face, your bike is definitely full up. And I suppose when you want the mount off it will be reasonably easy to do, even tho the stick like shit to a shoe sole.
Good job all the same davey, I know you need the satnav these days and don't you use that fonetab thing as a phone at times? 

Good little job Dave, I actually suction mount my cars satnav on the bike there when it is needed.
Your bike seems to take the expression 'fully loaded' to a new level. Dare I say that I spot a couple of inches of unused bar available for your next modification addition, on the left side of you apehangers.

Nice neat job Dave, quite a good sized screen too, much better than my tom tom with my ever reducing eyesight 

Yes Ken, my bike is some what fully loaded.  

Cheers Sim, I bought the Asus Fonetab very cheap for using on the bike as a Satnav because it has the capability to be a phone as well as a tablet . The screen size was one of the things that made me buy it. The chances of it staying mounted where it is are slim but it 'll do for now. I'm to tight fisted to risk my Galaxy tablet for this mod.

My issue is that since my Accident 2 years ago, I can't go out very often without a Satnav as I get lost. Which is a bit strange after being a class 1 driver for over 20 years but I am learning to live with it.

A big thanks must go to bigmal for the inspiration to do the mod.

Davey glad to see your still up for modding the bike, hopefully you will start riding more soon   

Good one dave ....great bit of work. 

 Sorry, only just saw your post. That kydex looks great stuff... Not as rippley as the drainpipe!

Well done Dave, looks well.

Thanks guys, it done me proud over the last few days. Done over 700 miles in 5 days but sadly in a car, not on a bike. I mounted another mount for the tablet on the cars dash board and have taken the tablet out and put it back in over 20 times so far, it's really holding up well. Really pleased with it.