Properly positioning a person’s tablet can make the difference between their success or failure in using an AAC app. The app needs to be positioned so that it can easily be viewed and accessed.

Many of the most popular tablet cases don’t have a built-in stand. Instead, they rely on a bendable handle to lift the tablet off of a horizontal surface:

The “typing” position is often too flat for reading and the “watching” position is too upright – and unstable – for interaction with the tablet. To compound the problem, the tablet must rotate between the two positions. This changes the location of the home button, camera, on/off switch, and volume controls. If the tablet is used with a keyguard, the regions of the tablet’s apps that are exposed by the keyguard can be upside down, making the app unusable.

To address this problem, we’ve created a customizable, 3D-printable, tablet stand that can be securely attached to the case, and deployed by a child using only one hand.

The stand is attached to the case using low-profile “Chicago screws” – also referred to as “binding posts”. The stand incorporates a print-in-place hinge pin and allows you to control the tightness of the hinge. The design “borrows” heavily from a hinge design created by Rohin Gosling.

Creating a Stand

You’ll need several items to create your stand:

a metric ruler,
an ink pen or marker,
a pin,
a short piece of masking tape,
some superglue – preferably the “gel” kind,
a drill with a 3/16-inch drill bit,
two Chicago screws of the “appropriate” length (more on that below),
a 10 mm hook & loop (aka, Velcro) dot – unfortunately, you can’t buy just one…,
a “sticky” material to put on the end of the stand to keep it from sliding on the table or desk (you have several options – see below),
the keyguard designer that you’ll find here, (if you’re using OpenSCAD on your PC, more on that below)
a printed tablet stand plate,
a printed copy of the “angle tester” document,
a designed and printed stand… (read on)

But First… Getting the Chicago Screws

Unless you happen to work with leather and make your own belts and saddles, you probably don’t have any Chicago screws on-hand, unlike the other items in the list above. These will have the longest lead time and you want to be sure to get the right size for your case.

Take your tablet out of its case and set it on a hard surface. Now stick a pin into the back of the case until you can’t push it any further because it has reached the hard surface:

Now, wrap a piece of tape around the base of the pin where it enters the case:

Pull the pin out and measure the distance from the bottom of the tape to the end of the pin:

The case above is 3/8-inch thick.

If your case is 3/8-inch thick or greater, you should purchase a pair of 3/8 inch Chicago screws – here’s one example.

If you case is less than 3/8-inch thick, you should purchase a pair of 1/4-inch Chicago screws – here’s one example.

Designing your stand

You can use the Thingiverse Customizer to design your stand and download the STL file or you can download and install the free program OpenSCAD and design your stand on your PC. We recommend taking the second approach because the Thingiverse Customizer is so fragile.

The images below were taken from the OpenSCAD user interface but the Thingiverse Customizer user interface will look very similar.

Collecting Some Measurements of Your Case

When you launch OpenSCAD and look at the Customizer pane for the tablet stand designer you’ll see these three sections:

The Stand Info section defines most aspects of your stand. The Fastener Info section controls the size of the openings in the stand for the Chicago screws. The Hinge Pin Tightness Info section is an acknowledgment that all 3D-printers are different and you’ll need to adjust the setting here to produce a hinge pin that can rotate but not be too loose or too tight.

Stand Info

The stand info section controls the size and rotation capabilities of your stand:

Preferred Tablet Angle

You can set the viewing angle that you would prefer for your tablet. Any of four values:


15 degrees**	30 degrees

45 degrees	60 degrees

** only reasonable for large tablets and cases

The angle of the tablet is controlled by how far the stand rotates on its hinge and the length of the stand’s leg. These values are “baked-into” the printed stand, so (at least for now) in order to change the tablet angle, you’ll have to remove the current stand and attach another.

It can be difficult to guess at what angle you would prefer to position your tablet, so we’ve provided a tool to help you with that decision. Refer to your printed copy of the “angle tester.pdf” document.

Fold the page backward along the bottom line. Set the folded tab of the page on the surface where the tablet will be used. Place your hand on the folded tab so that the rest of the page is held vertically and hold your tablet and case against the paper:

Place your head in the location where you will view your tablet. If you’ll use your tablet with a keyguard, put the keyguard on the tablet. Launch the app that you use most often.

Now rotate the tablet so that it aligns with each of the large lines on the paper. Determine which angle gives you the best visibility of the app. If you interact manually with the app, determine which angle gives you the best manual access to the app. In the picture above, the tablet is aligned with the 30-degree line.

Select your preferred angle as the “preferred tablet angle”.

Mounting Holes to Case Bottom Distance

Next you need to determine the distance between where the stand will mount to your tablet and the bottom edge that will rest on the desk or table.

We’ll start by placing the tablet stand plate (or a cut-out version from the angle tester print-out) along the inside, top-edge of the case. [Be sure to position the plate so that it is sitting flat against the back of the case.] We can use the line down the center of the plate (printed or paper version) and a ruler to position the plate as close the the center of the case (from side to side) as possible:

Insert a pin through one of the openings and out the other side of the case:

Alternatively, you can drill through the two “holes” with a 3/16-inch drill bit.

Measure along the back of the case from the pin (or center of a drilled hole) to the bottom edge of the case:

Enter the value you measure in millimeters into the “mounting holes to case bottom distance” option.

The remaining options represent these measurements:

The larger your tablet, the wider you will probably need to make the foot, for stability. The toe width will impact the amount of friction you can create between the table and the stand because that’s where you’ll put the materials that give you the extra friction. On the other hand, the wider the toe, the more you will need to rely on a flat surface to keep your stand from wobbling from side to side.

Accounting for Fasteners

These measurements will make room for the “screw” part of the Chicago screw. They affect the size of the holes that are part of the top of the stand. The three options have the following meanings:

You can get these measurements from the Chicago screws:

Testing Tightness

You’re almost render and print your stand. But before you do, you should check the tightness of the hinge portion of the stand.

Every 3D-printer has limited accuracy and some printers are more limited than others. A sloppy printer may not be able to handle the tight tolerances inside the hinge and may create a “frozen” hinge that won’t bend. You can loosen up the tolerances in the hinge by increasing the value of “hinge tightness” and make the hinge tighter by making the number smaller. As the comment says, you should try to stay between 0.3 and 0.5. Your goal is to create a hinge that will bend and stay in place until you bend it back. The hinge will loosen over time as it gets used so opt for stiffer in the beginning.

If you set “make tightness test” to “yes” the stand will be reduced to just enough for you to test the tightness of the joint. See if the default value prints well for you and adjust the value of “hinge” tightness and reprint, as necessary. Once you have a tightness you like, set “make tightness test” to “no” and render/print your stand. The tightness setting is related to your printer and should work for all future tablet stands you print on that printer.

Mounting Your Stand

You’re almost done, but there are a couple of things you can do to make your stand more reliable. That includes adding a “sticky” material to the toes of the stand and sealing the Chicago screws to the stand plate inside the case.

Watch the following video that shows the assembly process:

If you’re stand hasn’t been mounted perfectly and the feet don’t fit flat on the table, you can add a little more FlexSeal to fill that gap and the stand will be stable.

I’ve never tried a rubberized dip before but that might be a good option. The challenge will be to keep the rubber on the bottom of the toes flat without the dip running up the stand when inverted. Go slow and add multiple coats. Let’s try it:

I think I like the Plasti Dip better than FlexSeal. It sticks better to the stand. Now that I think of it, that should be expected given its purpose. One coat is fine for this job.

Do you have any ideas about how to improve this design? Provide some information below: