$3 diy tag clip for new half-size ez pass!

FIRST POST!  WOO!

okay, now that that's out of the way...

so i got the new half-size ez pass in the mail the other day.  which is great and all, except my current car never got the velcro affixed to the windshield, and i'd like to keep it that way.  i'd been using an ez clip, which was great and all, except they're useless with the new style pass.  so i thought i'd do something about it.  a quick visit to the plastics shop and came out with a 6x6" opaque white piece of 1/8" thick acrylic for $3...which was cheaper than the bigger pieces i'd bought for whatever reason.  whatever, onwards!

the finished product, if this is too tl;dr for you.

item checklist:
-piece of 1/8" thick acrylic.  pick a color, any color.  thinner should be fine too, but i wanted to err on the side of caution.
-your ez pass, obviously.
-heat gun
-dremel or hacksaw
-drill (a soldering iron can also work, in a pinch)
-suction cups (reused ones from the ez clip)
-a second set of hands would be nice to help heat while you bend.  my gf was happy to play with the heat gun.  i mean help.

here we are to start.  ample room above and below.  originally i'd intended to wrap the top down a bit, but i ended up cutting the entire top off because the bottom hugs it so well.

and here goes the heat gun...pass it slowly back and forth at 4-6" away from the surface being heated for a bit.  i think i did 10-15 seconds before i got bored.

 first curl.  i actually lied and the first heating was more like at 3"...so it heated really fast.  it bent fairly easily, but required 2 more heat and bend attempts before it got to where i needed it to be.  patience is needed here so you don't crack the plexi.  i left the paper on so i don't scratch anything.

finished bending it to the underside of the tag.

different angle.  i couldn't get a sharper right angle, but i really didn't care about that at that moment.

now for the second bend!  this image is 90 degrees counterclockwise.  oops.

it's also laundry day and i had no sheets on the bed.  don't judge me.

as i began the heating and bending process for the second curve, i started increasing the curve of the initial bend by accident.  since i was hand bending it, i couldn't do much about it.  there's probably a smarter way of doing this, but i was running on the spur of the moment.  hot plexiglass kinda hurts to handle barehanded.  captain obvious failed to notify me of that.  i resorted to using my otterbox-covered iphone as leverage.  it worked rather well.

unhappy with my hot potato fire bending process, i realized i could just use the edge of my bed for leverage.  ikea malm bed ftw!

this is pretty much where i wanted to be for the most part.  i also took this time to kind of roll the rounded first bend with each successive reheating, in an attempt to get a sharper bend.  i was somewhat successful.

front view.  it's an electronic pay tag blunt.

after i was more or less happy with the results of the bends, i traced the tag and eyeballed some wings to dremel out and bend in later.  this project was very scientific and mathematically accurate.  my eyeball knows such things.

dremel magic time!  process not shown because i kind of had both hands occupied.  it hugs it quite snugly.

heating, again!  this time to bend the wings in so it doesn't slide out during hard cornering or when i visit pothole city.  wait, that's all of new york city.  crap.

took 2 or 3 reheats, but i got the bends in pretty good.

not pictured because it wouldn't tell you anything visually, but after i was satisfied with the curves i removed the tag, reheated both bends again and bent the cradle and wings in a bit further to hug it and squeeze it and call it george.

i didn't take a picture of the drilling process because i had both hands full, again.  but i traced the suction cup "8" holes at a rough guess of where i'd like them to be, and drilled appropriately.  i have no idea the name of the bit i used, but it's stepped for each thickness bit instead of swapping bits.  the 8's were really crappy, so i will not show you them.  but they work!

aaaand we're done!  remove the protective paper covers and admire your work.  i can see all of the uneven lines but i doubt anyone else would notice without close scrutiny.  in which case i'd be worried as to why your face is so close to the top center of my windshield.  but enjoy!  hopefully you guys find this solution helpful, until an injection molded manufactured clip is produced at least.