I’ve needed a place to put sunglasses in my car for years. My sunglasses have typically ended up in one of the cup holders. Recently, it dawned on me that I could print a clip or holder that would attach to my sun visor to hold my sunglasses. I looked at the various 3D design websites to see what my options were, rather than start out designing my own. I found four that all seemed to be variations on a theme – a curved portion that wraps around the visor and another piece that holds the sunglasses. Here are the four I tried: Sunglasses Holder v2 (by ShandorT), Sunglasses Holder for Car Sun Visor (by Cdav), “CLIPY” SUNGLASSES CAR HOLDER (by Saddex3d), and Sunglasses Holder for Car Visor – Print-in-Place (by CEO3D).
I started by printing all of these in PLA to test them.
I took them all out to my car to test them. All of them fit on the visor just fine. But two of them were quickly ruled out because I couldn’t fit my sunglasses into them: the “CLIPY” design and the Sunglasses Holder for Car Sun Visor by Cdav (the two on the left side of the image above). If I pushed really hard, I could barely get my sunglasses into the CLIPY design. The other one was like a vise. I couldn’t even come close to opening it up big enough to get my sunglasses into it.
The most complicated design that latched shut was overkill (the one by CEO3D). It worked. But it was unnecessarily complex. Yes, it held the sunglasses in place, but it required me to use two hands to slide the sunglasses into place and close the latch, and two hands to open the latch again.
The simplest design was the one that worked the best – Sunglasses Holder v2 by ShandorT. It slid right onto my visor, and the simple little lip at the end made it easy to get my sunglasses in and out with one hand. Simple and easy.
Then I realized something important – PLA does not, in fact, hold up to the Florida heat. I left all four of them in my car for a day, parked at work, not even in direct sunlight. When I came back to my car and tried to lower my visor so I could put my sunglasses into one of the clips, all four of them slid right off the visor and into my lap. The heat had softened the clips, resulting in them losing the tighter angle required to stay in place on the visor.
I had read on a couple of the pages for these clips that they had to be printed in ABS or something similar that is more heat resistant. I had never printed using ABS, but figured it was time to try this as a result. Luckily, I had just bought a second 3D printer, the AnyCubic Kobra 3 Max, which has a heatbed that is able to reach 100 degrees, which is necessary to print ABS (my Bambu A1 Mini could only hit 80 degrees on the heatbed; the print failed on there).
Even with the heated bed, I struggled to get the ABS to stick consistently. I ended up having to do all of the following to get the ABS to stick: (a) a 15mm brim around the part, (b) glue, and (c) turn off the A/C in my house and the fan in the room. It took 5 or 6 attempts, but I finally got it to print.
I’ve had it in my car for about a week now, and it’s holding up to the Florida heat fine. I don’t know that it’s been in direct Florida sunlight yet, but it hasn’t softened and changed its shape.
After testing the above clips, I ended up making my own variation of the one I liked that has some teeth to keep it attached to the visor more securely. You can find it here.
NOTE: After a couple of weeks in my car, even the ABS printed clips lost their shape in the Florida heat. I think this might work in places where it doesn’t get that hot. But not Florida. I caved and ended up buying some off Amazon. It was a fun project, but I just can’t print a material that can withstand Florida heat.
