Turning a brittle old FP2 bumper case into a sturdy Fat Case

Participate Do It Yourself
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1

I guess, by now everyone of you has heard of or experienced an issue where the two parts of the Regular Case come apart and the soft silicon deforms.
At one point, I will probably search for a 3D print service to print the one that one of the users here designed. But until then: Monstrosity!

The problem with the case is that a very thin connection surface is supposed to hold a stiff plastic part and a wobbly silicon part together while both of them are exposed to changing temperature and physical forces that deform one part in another way than the other.

What I did was basically to increase that surface manifold. A plastered a fuckload of silicon around the exterior, sealing the opening gaps, connecting what came loose and fortifying what was still connected.
I only left free areas for buttons, sockets and microphone. The result is a Cronenbergish monstrosity of a smart phone. It is fat, sturdy, ugly, got a +2 of fall damage resistance, and is juuuust beautiful in my eyes. <3

Here are pictures: https://imgur.com/a/XctRR6Y

This is all I want from a phone case! It doesn’t have to be pretty. It must protect. And now it protects.

2

I know it ruins your topic title a bit, but to avoid confusion I changed it.

As far as I can see you are talking about the old bumper case Fairphone has long discontinued for the exact reason that it came apart.

The current cases not suffering from this problem and working totally differently are called Slim Cases.

This video shows the difference.

3

The heck? :face_with_monocle:
Those are new. But there must have been a name change, because I am pretty sure that I have had two slim cases that were called slim cases and both had this falling-apart issue.
Who calls the old one “bumper”? That’s a bit confusing since they aren’t really made for bumping.

4

If you consider parts introduced around October 2016 new, then yes.

https://forum.fairphone.com/search?q=bumper

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/31733/bumper-case

5

My bad. I just checked my order history. What they send me as a replacement part in January 2017 was called “regular case”, while the shop only had slim cases for ordering. Since they look the same on the pictures, I thought, they were the same.
Since then I was waiting for something different to be available. But that didn’t happen. Hence, cronenberg case.