Clipboard pen holder, secured by a binder clip

thingiverse

This is a pen holder that attaches itself to a clipboard or book cover using a sleeve. The sleeve is secured onto the clipboard by compressing a 25 mm binder clip like this, holding everything firmly in place. The pen clip is sized so it can be thermo-shaped around your pen. You'll need: 1 x 25 mm binder clip Print Settings: Rafts: No Supports: No Infill: Less than 50% Post-Printing: Slide the clip onto your clipboard and push the binder clip through a hole, allowing its jaws to rest inside the rectangular grooves at the front of the clip. Release the handles by compressing them inward. The pen clip is intentionally oversized so you can shape it around any pen. If printed in PLA, you can submerge the clip into boiling water to make it soft and moldable with your hands. If printed in ABS, a heat gun might be necessary for the same effect. I Designed This: This design demonstrates a concept that resolves an issue common when printing practical objects using PLA: maintaining shape when subjected to stress or deformation. While PLA excels in many areas, keeping its form when stretched is not one of them. If you attempt to use a simple clip made from PLA to hold something, it will gradually deform and lose its clamping pressure over time. I speculate this issue applies to all plastics to varying degrees, which is why manufacturers often opt for spring-loaded clips at an additional cost. In this case, I employed binder clips due to their affordability and ease of availability, along with the convenience of assembling them with the clip. These come in a range of sizes, offering different clamping forces, so integrating them into future designs is appealing. Tinkercad Source Document: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/819RrLQ2L7y-binder-clip-enabled-pen-clip