FirstGenTundra.com's ashtray mount for phone/radio (wireless charging) mod

Recently forced to rejigger my phone situation, I ended up with an iPhone 15+. It's large, it uses USB-C for charging, and I decided I was over using cables, plugging crap in, I want wireless charging. We have it in our Highlander and I like just being able to slap stuff down onto the charger and go. Besides that, trying to orient my phone so I can see Maps while driving is a beast, and it eats up one of my cupholder slots, which sucks! I like my cupholders, which made the wireless cupholder mag chargers unappealing to me.

I was mulling over how to pull this off without using double-sided adhesive, drilling the dash, using, 3D printed plastic mounts ... I wanted a solid base, something that would float near a power receptacle. Enter FirstGenTundra.com's $25 dual-slot mount that replaces your ashtray face, intended for use with RAM mounts, but really, it'll mount anything securely and supports easy install with T-nuts, so it seemed like a great candidate for my needs.It's all-steel, and looked pretty well constructed from their pictures.

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Next, I needed a wireless/mag charger for my phone. There's a lot out there, especially on scAmazon, with all their rebranded gibberish-ALLCAPS-named shitware. I wanted to go with a name I could at least remotely trust. It just so happened Belkin's magnetic vent-clip mag charger was on sale at 30% off (i.e. ~$40), the base plate of the mag charger used a 17mm ball mount which I could adapt out pretty easily, and I generally like their products, so I pulled the trigger on it.

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All I needed now was something with a baseplate on one end, and a 17mm ball mount on the other. Something sturdy anough to hold the weight of a plus-sized phone. After a bunch of digging, I found this unit from iBOLT, and I like it because it's got a sturdier 1" (~25mm) base ball, and uses a 25mm-to-17mm ball adapter on the other end. Furthermore, the design made it really adaptable, and I like that the 1" ball for the base is rubber-coated, for better slip resistance once cinched down.

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Obviously, I'm in this for $90-100 at this point, and I realize that price point is probably not appealing for some, but I wanted something pretty specific for my needs. I'm sure there's probably a cheaper way to pull this off with drilling, adhesives, using cheaper, non-brand-name products. Hell, I could've probably gotten a wireless charger and mounted it to the underside of my center console tray. But I wanted my phone in a specific spot creating more of a cockpit feel.

Here's what I needed to build the mount. (1) box of T-nuts, (1) iBOLT mount kit, and (1) FirstGenTundra.com faceplate replacement mount. Not picured: (2) shorter M4 screws, as you can see here, the iBOLT screws provided were ~20mm long, which was doulbe what would fit. So I raided my metric fastener bin to find a couple of 12mm/M4 screws, which barely (and I mean barely) fit.

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This is how it all came together.

FirstGenTundra.com's kit replaces the faceplate of your ashtray with a dual-slot steep piece like this - all that's required is popping out the two screws holding on the faceplate, then rotating their new face over a lip and re-securing with the two OEM screws. More pics of how this works can be found at their website.

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With the new faceplate mount installed, I had to figure out how to mount the 1" ball base for the iBOLT kit. Really, this is the one major flaw to using the iBOLT kit, I really wish their baseplate was diamond-shaped like the RAM mounts are. Mounting diagonal wasn't an option here for clearance reasons, so I figured with most of the weight wanting to pull the mount downward, I'd utilize the top mounts. This isn't ideal from a jolt-and-bump perspective, it'd forcing all strain onto one slot. But without modifying the base (which I'll likely do, soon), it's what seemed best.

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You can see how little clearance there was for those T-nuts and fasteners. T-nuts are pretty essential here, you could potentially get a washer and nut behind it, but T-nuts let you thread the nut mostly on, slide thru the slot, then spin them into place so their flanges lock it all down and cinch.

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And now with the iBOLT kit mounted to the ball.

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Looking at this after-the-fact, in the picture above, I see it's probably possibe to make a couple of simple brackets that would grab the bottom holes of the ball mount plate, and secure them to the mount screws up under the ashtray to negate flop/bending of the mount, but time will tell. Another option, maybe modify the iBOLT bracket, cutting off the bottom two holes, rounding the edges out, then drilling a couple of new holes in-line with the slots.

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Some in-truck shots showing how this panned out. It legitimatelly feels sturdy in place, I'm actually more concerned about how anemic the magnet is on the Belkin wireless charging plate. While it does the job of holding the phone on the pad, and my phone case has a built-in magnetic ring to beef it all up, we'll see how well it holds up to Atlanta streets, which are rougher than some of the Appalachian FSR's north of town we hike and camp from. I could see this being a great no-drill opton for Baofeng handhelds for group events. There's no reason you couldn't swap the end ball out to a 25mm-25mm or 25mm-??mm adapter for other equipment. Garmin and Belkin seem to use 17mm balls for whatever reason.

Time will also tell whether or not I need to find a way to lock the ashtray in or not. It'll be interesting to see if it tries to slide in/out or not.

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Interesting... Does that HU not have Apple Car Play to use for NAV? I know it's an extra cable to run out of the back of the HU and into the same area if it did have it, and I know you wanted to keep it clean, but that cable would charge the phone. I just lay the phone in the little tray in front of the cupholders. I really like having the NAV in my HU. Keeps my eyes more focused upward. The only complaint is glare in certain lighting because of the light tan seats. I like your idea though. Especially since the ashtray is worthless. I mean, do people still smoke and use them? Gross.

 

Wired carplay only. This is the ilx-650. The ilx-670, sadly, is also wired carplay. I think the only current option from Alpine for wireless carplay is the ilx-507, but I don't like how the controls jut out at the bottom. The 650/670 have a nice, clean, OEM-like appearance.

I installed a hidden USB port for the HU here: https://www.tundras.com/threads/howto-add-flush-mount-usb-aux-port-in-center-console.70236/

I use it for updates, and was using it for USB music, but it's too cumbersome to deal with loading music from a USB stick on car receivers, so I only use it for updates now.

 

Bro, not to jack your thread, but this thing is the shit! You can plug it into the back. I have one and the wife has one. https://a.co/d/iBTum1q

 

Well, I can say after 20mins on the bumpiest roads I can find:

• I can't get the phone to fall off the charger
• This is great for highway driving, but there is inherent movement in the arm over really bumpy areas - nature of the beast having it on a "boom" of sorts, I guess
• Only way to really resolve the screen movement is to take the arm out of the equation and move to a shorter ball mount
• No slipping/falling/movement of the arm whatsoever, even over the worst bumps, even with a plus-sized phone
• I'm sticking with it, the placement of the phone is perfect for driving purposes

Doesn't solve my charging situation but I love the idea; however, my radio already has CarPlay, won't this just be stacking CarPlay on top of CarPlay?

 

If you're not plugged into the CarPlay USB for charging then it's a wireless solution. The plug will always override the wireless