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Steve108 Steve108 is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 15
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My Replacement Ash Tray

Since I don't smoke and putting coins in the ash tray jams it, I decided to make one that was more useful to me.

I also have an aftermarket head unit that has a few USB ports and I wanted a way to organize them more neatly.

Here is what I came up with:





The large slot on the left is a wireless charging area for a cell phone. The two USB ports are on the right. There are small holes under the USB ports to allow light from the ash tray light to show through the face and help with locating them in the dark. I think it might be useful to add some light pipes in these holes.



The small U shaped clips hold the USB port in to the ash tray face.



The wireless charging pad is powered by the old lighter socket wiring. A tray holds the phone in the right position for the charger to work.

Everything except the "Cayenne" inlay is 3D printed with PETG. The inlay is 3D printed in PLA. I smoothed the inlay with acetone and glued it in to to face. Once it was glued in, I wetsanded the face with 100, 220, and 400 grit sandpaper so everything was flush. Finally, I heated the sanded face gently with a heat gun to make it a bit darker in color (after sanding it was more of a gray color). I think there is room for improvement in the finishing process. One thought would be to increase the infill percent near the face to 100% so you have more material to work with. You can see where mine is a little thin on the right side.

This is the prototype model and it's not perfect but it does work. I would use black adhesive if I were to make another one. The ash tray and face fit the car really, really well. It stays closed by friction alone, but you do have to hold it closed when removing a USB device. I'm sure there are a lot of ways to address this. The fitment of the phone tray and charging pad could use a little massaging but they are usable as printed. You'd probably want to adjust to fit your own phone, usb ports, and charging pad anyway... It matches my 13 year old interior well enough that I'm just going to enjoy this one for now.





The STLs and original Inventor files are uploaded here in case you want to try making your own:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16v0JCLPlRQocHntpRFrGPf3TfzLcbWyk/view?usp=sharing

Free to use/ modify/ distribute. Only thing I ask is please don't claim my work as your own.
Old 09-20-2021, 05:06 PM
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