I have a 71 240z that I restored and drive when the weather is nice, but it has one problem that plagues all old cars. No place to mount a phone that is not some sort of ugly stuck on solution or suction cup windshield mount.
I took matters into my own hands after being inspired by Brian James displacement mapping video
I first, reverse engineered the stock the fusebox cover/ash tray, and then built a part that replaced the ash tray area with a mag safe charging puck.
it’s a simple project, but the details were kinda cool.
The stock part has a very subtle texture on the top surfaces and the new part looked unfinished without it.
I grabbed a substance material that had a leather pattern in it and used those textures (convert to PBR first) as a displacement on only the two top surfaces. (sub object assignment)
After several iterations, fit refinements and ergonomic fiddlings, I came up with the final part.
Printed on my bambu using ASA and the extra fine settings (4 walls, gyroidal infill at 50%) with a .04 nozzle the texture printed surprisingly well.
With one caveat-
I discovered a weird thing during the process, If you print the textures parallel to the xy plane, the heated nozzle “irons” the texture out and ruins the effect. However if you print it at a pretty steep angle so the nozzle only makes one pass over the “bumps” it comes out great-
early iteration dialing in the fits and function-
texture tests- (shrinkwrapping the parts after displacing the texture made the parts print WAY better)
final test part textured-
final part installed and working-
I installed a usb socket wired inline to the lighter and all the wiring for the puck is hidden under the part itself for a very clean, stock looking install.
It was impressive to me to see the difference adding the subtle texture made in the overall feel of the part.
It also has led to many internal discussion here on how to do this type of stuff more efficiently which is always the main goal of these type of projects I like to do. Most of them I don’t share, but this one turned out really cool…at least I think so.
hope it inspires you to play with this stuff and push your models even more!
