Clip mount adapter for Garmin eTrex Vista/Legend C/Cx/HCx GPS devices

thingiverse

In principle, all owners of a eTrex Vista/Legend C/Cx/HCx or similar handheld Garmin GPS device should already have such a little adapter that can be screwed on the battery cover and is needed when using the GPS with some sort of bike or car mount. The adapter is included in the standard product, while the mounts themselves are sold separately (or printed by yourself - see below). As it happens, such little things get easily lost. So, for all those who can't find it anymore (or managed to break it) here is a printable replacement. The printed part is fastened to the battery cover of the eTrex by means of a ~10mm long screw of type UNC 4-40. (Being in Europe, this is not an easy thread to find, but it turns out that this type of screws were used in the old 25- and 9-pin serial cables to fasten the plug to the socket - and some of those were still lying around in my cable box...) In addition to the parametrized SCAD file, I include two STL files - one for vertical and one for horizontal printing: The vertical version prints without any auxiliary support structures, but it requires a really good printing quality, since the layers are perpendicular to the flexible tongue, so with poor print quality, it will be easy to break the tongue when bending it. The horizontal version is much more robust as to print quality, since the layers are parallel to the tongue, resulting in a much better "bendability" of the tongue. In addition, since the layers are also parallel to the sliding direction, there is much less friction when mounting and unmounting the device. The disadvantage of the horizontal version is due to the need of some auxiliary structures needed to support the overhang of the tongue and the bridge on the bottom slide rail. These parts (shown in red in one of the above pictures) have to be cut away carefully after printing. Of course you can use this adapter also with my eTrex bike mount http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:163503 - which you can print yourself. 2019-09-04: User beaq pointed out a small error with the horizontal version: one of the supports was based at z=-0.1mm instead of z=0, which, in some slicers and for some small layer heights, can cause problems with printing. The bug has been corrected in the "-v2" versions of the files. Instructions Given that the tongue has to be bent by about 2mm when engaging and disengaging the click-mount, I guess ABS is the material of choice here. I printed the adapter on my RepRap with a 0.40mm nozzle and 0.25mm/0.55mm layer height/width.