After many years of looking at drones, I recently acquired a DJI Mavic 2 Pro. I was slightly familiar with drones from watching YouTube videos and reading articles on the internet, but once I actually owned one, I quickly found out that I had a lot more to learn. One of the problems I was having was trying to fit my Samsung Note 8 properly into the holder that is part of the Mavic remote control. It just never seem to fit correctly. And when I did get it to stay in there (certainly not fit correctly) the cable connection was so sketchy that any little movement caused the USB C plug connection at my phone to disconnect. It’s pretty clear that DJI designed most of their stuff around Apple products, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t do me any good as an Android user. After looking around on-line I saw many aftermarket phone and tablet holders that looked great in pictures, but in person they weren’t so great. (I had to return several) I finally stumbled upon an all metal phone and/or tablet holder that looked pretty good, and based on it’s description it should hold my Note 8, OR my new Samsung TAB S6 tablet…. so I bought it.
Once the holder arrived, after being on back order for about two weeks, I was very impressed with the overall build quality and fit & finish. It is everything the product listing on Amazon says it is. The one problem is….. The only way for it to hold my Samsung Note 8 phone, or my Samsung Galaxy TAB S6 tablet, is to remove them from their cases. I did fly my drone a few times with my Note 8 removed from it’s case, but I refused to remove by new table from it’s case just to fly the drone. I really wanted to see the drone view on my larger tablet screen so I did fly it one time with the tablet on the tailgate of my truck with a long USB cable going to the controller. The large tablet made flying the drone WAAAAY better than watching on the small (relatively) screen of the Note 8. Way better!
So back to Amazon I went in search of a quality, all metal tablet holder that will hold the Samsung TAB S6 WITH a case. They don’t exist. At least not that I could find and I spent hours looking for something that world work. I even searched google for something that might not already be listed on Amazon. Again, no luck. So after some serious thinking, I discovered the all metal holder that I already own would do what I’m looking for with just a little modification. And so the modification project began.
After some measuring of my tablet and tablet holder, I knew what I needed and headed to the store. below is a list of items I purchased to make this modification in case you’re reading this and planning to do this same modification for yourself.
- One piece of 1″ wide X 1″ tall X 1/16″ thick X 4′ aluminum angle. You don’t need four feet but my store didn’t have it any shorter You could get my with about three inches and still have leftover.
- Four #6-32 X 3/8 long, Allen head cap screws. You can use whatever screw you would like but this is what my store had in 3/8″ length, by #6 diameter, and also had a drill bit/tap kit available in that size.
- Two #6-32 drill bit/tap kits. I bought two, but if you don’t break anything, one kit should be just fine. They were slightly over 5 bucks each. I can return the unused set next time I visit that store, which is fairly often.
Once I had all the parts and pieces it was just a matter of cutting two pieces of aluminum angle to the correct size, drilling two holes in each aluminum angle, drilling two holes in each end of the metal tablet holder, tapping threads in those four holes, and then assemble for test fitting. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the hole drilling process but I just used a cheap bench-top hobby drill press. It even has a bent shaft so the chuck and drill bit run completely out-of-round. lol.
The pictures below show the results of each step:
Aluminum extension brackets cut to size and holes drilled.
Holes drilled and tapped in metal tablet holder.
Aluminum extension brackets installed on the tablet holder.
Finished with both extension brackets installed.
Test fitting the Samsung TAB S6 WITH case in the modified tablet holder.
One last thing…. I need to take off the new aluminum extension brackets and do some filing and sanding to smooth all rough edges. I do have a large disc sander, which I did use briefly on these brackets, but it’s too course and leaves a rough finish. I need to hand finish these for a nice finsh that won’t cut my skin, or leave marks in the plastic tablet case.
This thing is ROCK SOLID now! The tablet fits very tightly and feels like it’s permanently installed. There is absolutely no movement to speak of. I can’t wait to fly the drone with this new (modified) tablet holder. Look for an update at the bottom of this article with the real world flight test results, and pictures of the finished, hand smoothed brackets.
Disclaimer: If anyone reading this has found themselves in the same situation I was, and is thinking about trying this modification, please do so with caution. Just because it worked for me without damaging the tablet holder itself, doesn’t mean everyone will have the same results. Precisely drilling and tapping small holes in sintered powdered metal parts (I’m pretty sure that is what the original tablet holder is made from) can be tricky. Not to mention, drilling a hole in an already small (relatively weak) piece of metal can remove enough material to cause the part to lose it’s original rigidity and can break very easily. MODIFY AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Thanks for stopping by Garage Topic.