Problem

For the longest time, my headphone was taking up space on my table. I don’t use it all the time, but I do sit at my table for work and for leisure and when I happen to not listen to music I need space to work.

It would be nice if I could put the headphone to an easily accessible place, but not on the workspace.

Design

So what can be done? I should mount a hook to the table, but that would need a good mounting method which isn’t very easy to fabricate form plastic. I got a lamp already that is in the optimal position, has excellent mounting, maybe it could be mounted onto that.

Finally, I have learned my lesson about 3D modelling and this time I didn’t try to fabricate everything in Fusion 360. Instead, made some sketches beforehand and set most of the dimensions that I could. It seems to me that the model comes together fast if there are some dimensions already set. Without those everything is very undefined.

There is one idea that I would like to highlight. A small incident angle of 5 degrees was added to the hook, so that the headphone itself would always try to slide into the hook, rather than out of it. Yes, the design shows 10 degrees, but during modelling that seemed excessive.

Another change between the sketch and the design was the elongation of the flaps used to connect the two pieces. Now they are of the same height as other parts of the piece. Originally one screw was drawn for each side, but during designing it seemed more appropriate (and aesthetically pleasing) to double the screws too.

Printing

The printing went smoothly with the first part. The PETG filament was a bit wet, so it sputtered a bit, that is why it turned out so milky. Not too happy about that, but I can’t dry yet the filament, and technically it doesn’t affect the strength of the result.

The back part was a bit trickier. Printed it, so the layer lines would run along the length of the hook arm. This maximizes strength for the part.

Finally, put a few M3 inserts into them. These aren’t strictly necessary, but they look good and allow us to disassemble the part if it ever came to that.

There was a small unexpected issue, however. It seems that printing the part on its side somehow allowed the arch to warp a tiny bit. As it can be seen below, the front part had no such deformation thus fits perfectly while the back part did.

Thankfully, this is plastic, and for completely unrelated reasons four screws were designed for it instead of two. That means we can torque it until it fits! Muhaha, if you aren’t smart enough there is always enough force!

Not gonna lie, I was bracing for something to break, but it seems the material gave just enough. Maybe it became a bit stronger overall given all the internal tension? Well, I have no idea, but it is done, the headphone fits, mission completed.

Files

Fusion 360 link: heaphone_stand