Protect your mobile with Sugru -

First -this blog willbe mate hardware an oftware experiments made at the LHC. Not the European Counterpart - but the one in Campinas - Brazil. And thsi very first post is about a "Buld Night"we had back in july/2013 using Sugru - gently donated by jameco - as part of their program to give stuff to hacker Spaces around the World to keep ideas flaoting. So - you can check what is Sugru on the link above - but in short, it can be described as some high tech, colorfull, rubery epoxy. that comes packaged like bubble gum. I was not planning anything specific to do with the Sugur - but it happened that I went to the Hacker space on the "Sugru Build Night". Having nothins extra with me prompted me to try the Sugru on things I carry around with me anyway - ant the choice fell on my Mobile.

I own this low end Motorola Galaxy-who-cares-It-is-just-a-cheap-android model. :-) An it is so cheap that without a silicon cover, whenever being placed on a hard surface - even if dropped from 2-3 cm, the shock will make the battery disconnect for a fraction of a second - enough to turn the device off. This can be seriously inconvenient - as you expect it to be ready to receive calls and notifications, and so on. I had actually mitigated the problem soon after purchase by folding a small strip of paper and placing it to push the battery towards the contacts. The problem became less acute, but would persist - here and there, when placing the mobile on a table would turn it off - Since Sugru is rubbery, I decided to try to make some shock absorbing pads on the mobile - so that shocks would be absorbed. You can see on the photo - even on the same night, I decided to remove the round-paddings on the corners, and keep just the straight lines on the bottom of the phone. The simple reason: the balls on the corner would prevent the phone to be opened should i wish to replace my SIM card, or fiddle with the battery. So - I went for it - some of it worked, some other things not

Pros It works! Small shock absorption worked as planned. I did nto intend to design it to withstand falls - just making the phone "bouncy" enough that when placed ona flat surface it won't turn off. It never turned off on its own again after I put the pads on. Unique: This model is quite popular around, and there are some similar other phones. Having Sugur sticked to mine make it easy to distinguish from other people's devices. People with a more artistic vein can even use it to make the phone beautifull.

Cons: Sugru turned out to be sticky and hard to work in fine detail. Even using a set of tools to try to make a straight line pad just yielded a jagged rubber blotch. It is susefull to glue things together, maybe for roundy miniatures and sculptures - but donp t try to use it if you want straight lines. It is sticky, but it is not magic - I left the padding on the phone - which I use on a daily basis, carring it around on the pocket. The devie plastic is not made to stick on things - so after about 3-4 weeks of continuous use, one of the paddings just fell off. The other padding was a bit wider, and is keeping on to this day. (The stripe is about 4-5mm wide) Sugru will get you dirty! That gave origin to what could become the second part of this instructable, since I found out an effective way to clean off the stuff: wash it off your hands with Coca-cola or some other equivalent acid-soft-drink.

That is about it - forthcoming build-nights could yield things more interesting - but this one just keeps my mobile from randomly turning off - which is good enough!