Do you want to strap something to your backpack?

I fly FPV miniquads. It is pretty common for FPV pilots to find a way to strap extra drones to the outside of their backpacks. I've used these doodads to add a couple of mounting points to my smallest FPV backpack. You can see it holding an FPV drone on my backpack in one of the product pictures.

I am not a seamstress, so this seemed like a good way to add a Velcro strap to a bag. One carbon fiber plate goes inside the bag, a couple of spacers and a second plate does on top. All you have to do is figure out how to poke small holes in the material. I used the little reamer tool on the back of my Swiss Army knife. Just don't poke too big of a hole!

The idea is that the weight of whatever you're hanging on your bag will be distributed across the entire piece of carbon fiber instead of just the two screw holes. I haven't done a long-term test yet, but none of my test parts have damaged my bags over the last few weeks.

What do you get?!

• 2 long carbon plates (2mm thick)
• 2 carbon fiber spacers (2mm thick)
• 2 10mm steel M3 screws (hex drive)
• 2 M3 lock nuts
• 1 300mm strap

I would appreciate feedback. The 10mm screws work great with the canvas-like material of my bags, but I had to move up to a longer screw in one spot. My laptop bag has rather thick padding, and I needed a bit more reach.

Are the screws too short for you? Is the strap too long? Too short? Let me know so I can stock the correct pieces.

Pat! Why on Earth did you make this?!

I cut one of my other Tindie products out of a 400x300mm plate of carbon fiber. I wind up wasting about 20mm along two edges. It seems wasteful to throw these scraps away, but I also had absolutely no idea what to do with them.

The first carbon fiber Velcro-strap doodad I designed was a 30mm square. It worked great, but it was also overkill. It was designed just like our FPV drones. You could use it to strap a 250-gram battery to an 800-gram FPV drone, and it would hold just fine in a 120 MPH crash.

So I scaled it down. My backpack will only ever need to hold a few pounds, and I am pretty sure the Velcro strap will give way long before the carbon fiber snaps. I haven't done the math, though!

Shipping

This is kind of a test run. Each set of parts weighs about 1/3 oz, and the post office says I can put these in an envelope with a $0.58 stamp as long as it weighs less than 3.5 oz.

This seems like the best way to send such an inexpensive item, and since we're making use of material that I would have had to eventually throw away, it is also probably better for the environment.