Summary

A simple enclosure for a 4g FreedomPop Photon Wifi HotSpot.

Instructions

I devised a project for myself with the lofty goal of freeing my phone from my cell phone contract. I think it went pretty well! If you pursue a similar option that I did, hopefully the uploaded case helps you out.

FreedomPop is a somewhat new service using the Sprint network. For a one-time fee of $40, you can get 500 megabytes of free data every month through a wifi hotspot (called a FreedomPop Photon) that gets mailed to you. When you combine this with the fact that you can make Voice-over-IP calls through Android, you can end up with a service-free phone! The Photon's battery lasts about 6 to 8 hours for me, and I only need to use it when I'm out of Wifi range otherwise.

For my project, I have a Samsung Galaxy S3. I found a case on Thingiverse quite easily. However, I wanted to mount my FreedomPop Photon to it. So, I designed the uploaded case.

I also designed a Samsung S3 case that has an equally-shaped hole in it, but I don't know that I can upload it since it's a derivative of a work that is now copyrighted some reason. Oh well, it's nothing special.

To make use of this case:

Get a phone case for your S3. Make sure it's made out of ABS plastic, many cases you can buy are.
(optional) Cut a hole in it, which allows you to access the FreedomPop later.
Print the FreedomPop Photon case
Trim the case so that the FreedomPop Photon within will sit snugly against your phone. (Note that the bottom sheet of the FreedomPop Photon case you printed is quite thin and should be flexible enough to bow to the slightly-bulging shape of the photon.
Glue the FreedomPop Photon case to your phone case with acetone.
Impress your friends with your ugly case and cancel your phone contract!

As you'll see in my photographs, you can save a little additional space so that your resulting case is not so big. It takes a bit more work, though. The idea is to cut down the size of the FreedomPop Photon by eliminating part of its case.

Optional steps for the brave:

Take off the top cover of the FreedomPop case.
Print a replacement cover. (I printed a second FreedomPop Photon case and just stopped it early, then cut it with scissors to size).
Replace the original top cover by glueing it on with acetone.
When fitting the phone case and FreedomPop Photon case together, align the Photon case so that it will sit with its flat side against the back of the phone.

FreedomPop Photon Enclosure