Introduction: Swing Arm Lamp Phone Mount for Video Calls

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This instructable will show you how to attach your phone to your swing-arm desk lamp, which has the handy quality of being quite repositionable. You may already have a swing arm desk-lamp, a binder clip, and a rubber band in your home. This is all you need to make a highly repositionable video call camera mounting system in the time of Covid-19.

Good luck and keep close to your people in spirit, if not in body!

Step 1: Build Your Phone Clamp From a Big Binder Clip

Use a large binder clip to make a mount for your phone that clips to your lamp (or anything).

Bend the ends of the silver handles of your binder clip inward towards each other to about 90 degrees. Put the bend close the end of the taper, just before it flares outward. These ends will hold on to the edge of your phone. You can use a standard pair of pliers or place the ends of the clips in a vise and bend it that way. After bending, it's nice to put something a bit soft on them like a little duct tape, as they'll be holding onto the edge of your phone.

This idea came from the internets back in the day, and you can still find lots of variations on instructables and that tube thing that google has.

Step 2: Place a Rubber Band on the Handles to Make Them Pull Towards One Another

Now wrap a rubber band around the legs of your binder clip a few times so that they are drawn together. This will keep the ends of the binder clip handles holding tightly to your phone. You want it quite snug, so it doesn't drop, but not so tight that's it's too hard to put your phone in it. Test fit the clip on your phone until you get the tension right.

Step 3: Attach the Clip to Your Swing Arm Desk-lamp, and Then Add Your Phone

Without the phone attached, simply clip the binder clip onto the edge of your lamp by squeezing the handles to open it a little, the way you normally would. Once attached, insert your phone between the handles.

Step 4: Mess Around With Your Swingin' Camera Mount

You can use your handy-dandy swing-arm-lamp cell phone camera mount to:

1. Achieve unconventional and previously impractical hands-free camera angles in your next video call.

2. Make it easy to quickly move between face-to-face communication and showing something you are working on with your hands, simply by moving your lamp to face whatever you want to be shown.

3. Make amazing multi-angle kung-fu movie camera shots by joining two or more cameras to the same call and vigorously punching the air.