Wireless Car Charging Mod

[$ Khalid ! 9130]

600th POST ..............

Wow, what better to have your 600th post be the 'Top Secret Project' you were working on!!

Anyways as the mod funds are at an all time low at the moment, I have been using anything and everything I can find to try some new stuff. Recently I made a charging stand for my Microsoft Band 2, using some MDF wood we have lying around. It turned out pretty well so I thought I could put my woody skills to another use.

Here came the wireless charging idea for my TB once again....

I started out by messing he size of my largest cup holder, behind the gear shifter. It's where I always place my phone, so that naturally would be where I'd like to put the charger.



Measured out the size of the cup holder and cut a thin sheet as a base



Took another piece and cut the bottom part in a slant cut to provide the stand for the charger and phone to rest on. The charger is pictured above. It's a Belkin one, and one I have had problems with ever since I bought it . You can also see me experiment with spray painting the piece of the wood at the bottom of the pic



Reinforcement at the base, and got the top part wrapped with the carbon fiber vinyl I have lying around the house



Tried mounting the charger itself, to the stand, cause my mom didn't want me breaking into the charger



It was too wide to fit in flush with the cup holder, so it was certain to be broken into. Which was a fight to the finish. Only one of the screws at the bottom came off, rest was just a lot of strength and sound of plastic breaking



With the plastic off and the coil out, my suspicions were right. It was a shitty single coil charger in such a HUGE plastic body. I have Nokia triple coil chargers in a sleeker and much smaller body than this



Needed some more reinforcement for the stand, the charger is held to the stand using some aluminum wire. I tried screwing it etc.. Just couldn't get it to work. So wire it was.



Added some extras here, just to keep the stand nice and flat. Didn't turn out that well, and I think one of these pieces just fell off yesterday. Will need to rethink about these



A last minute modification after testing the stand. The phone would slack when put into the cup holder and miss the coil. So had to put this small piece to keep it upright with the coil to charge.



This is how it looks when in the car. The cable is coming through the rear cig lighter. No custom wiring or anything done, just a USB to micro USB cable. This was one of the main reasons I bought this charger was because it worked through micro USB. I have a spare Nokia Wireless Charger, but it's cable is so proprietary that I could find one that had a USB at the back.

Anyways it does work now. Much better than before. Although there seemed to be a hiccup when I went out yesterday. I am going to try to remove the rubber cup holder base and see if it will improve the performance.

ANd if you guys have any ideas on how to improve this please let em know for sure

 

[Blckshdw]

ANd if you guys have any ideas on how to improve this please let em know for sure

That's a great idea, I like the ingenuity. I can see your mod bug growing

Since I can't do many mods right now, I will live through you If you ever decide to make a second version of this mod, here's the direction I'd go with, depending on how easily you have access to materials and tools, and how much effort you wanna put in.

Using a piece of thin cardboard, like a cereal box or something, cut out a large T shape to use as a template, similar to this.




Pull the rubber insert out of the cup holder and fit the T in upside down. Then you can mark where you want to trim down the wings of the base however big/small you'd like them.




Put the rubber insert back in place, and that will hold your mount firmly. You can fold over the strip to come down inside the cup holder, and play with the length and height so your phone lays flat against it, and sits in the bottom of the cup holder without sliding around. I had to use my HU remote, since I was using my phone for the pics, but you get the idea.





Once you get your template the way you want it, if you could get a sheet of aluminum, you could transfer the pattern to it, cut it out to match, and bend it into shape. Wrap it with your carbon fiber vinyl, or paint it. You could stop there, but how much fun would that be?

If you get adventurous enough to want to try hiding your wiring, you could remove the center console storage bin to access the wiring running to the rear lighter (the little rubber mat in the bottom covers 4 screws). Tap the wires and solder in a cigarette lighter socket like this one

Then you can connect your USB adapter and cord, nice and tucked away. Drill a hole in the plastic part of the bottom of the cup holder to fit the USB connector through from below. Poke a hole in the rubber insert with a screw driver, or cut a slit, and fish the USB through that, and feed it to your coil. Turning the circuit board vertically also looks like it will give you a better profile.

Now you've got a more stealthy wireless charging setup. And if you ever need to take it out, the hole in the rubber insert won't be noticeable, while it hides the hole in the plastic below.

 

[$ Khalid ! 9130]

That's a great idea, I like the ingenuity. I can see your mod bug growing

Since I can't do many mods right now, I will live through you If you ever decide to make a second version of this mod, here's the direction I'd go with, depending on how easily you have access to materials and tools, and how much effort you wanna put in.

Using a piece of thin cardboard, like a cereal box or something, cut out a large T shape to use as a template, similar to this.

Pull the rubber insert out of the cup holder and fit the T in upside down. Then you can mark where you want to trim down the wings of the base however big/small you'd like them.

Put the rubber insert back in place, and that will hold your mount firmly. You can fold over the strip to come down inside the cup holder, and play with the length and height so your phone lays flat against it, and sits in the bottom of the cup holder without sliding around. I had to use my HU remote, since I was using my phone for the pics, but you get the idea.

Once you get your template the way you want it, if you could get a sheet of aluminum, you could transfer the pattern to it, cut it out to match, and bend it into shape. Wrap it with your carbon fiber vinyl, or paint it. You could stop there, but how much fun would that be?

If you get adventurous enough to want to try hiding your wiring, you could remove the center console storage bin to access the wiring running to the rear lighter (the little rubber mat in the bottom covers 4 screws). Tap the wires and solder in a cigarette lighter socket like this one

Then you can connect your USB adapter and cord, nice and tucked away. Drill a hole in the plastic part of the bottom of the cup holder to fit the USB connector through from below. Poke a hole in the rubber insert with a screw driver, or cut a slit, and fish the USB through that, and feed it to your coil. Turning the circuit board vertically also looks like it will give you a better profile.

Now you've got a more stealthy wireless charging setup. And if you ever need to take it out, the hole in the rubber insert won't be noticeable, while it hides the hole in the plastic below.

Great idea there. Really appreciate it. I want to see how this one lasts. I am quite happy with the design of the base and stand. And access to a sheet of aluminum and the cutting etc... would nt be possible right now due to . The thing I might want to do to the holder I made is maybe try to cover the coil itself to avoid damage. It was in a pretty thick plastic casing, so I was thinking maybe another thin piece of wood may suffice?? The reason I haven't thought of splicing here and there is because the wiring for my Bluetooth adapter and this wireless charger are from the back port of the centre console. And the cable for the adapter also is really hard to find. I'll post some pics as I think it's time I cleaned up the wiring in the back

EDIT :

Here are some pictures from the rear seat. It's a mess right now



The cable for my Bluetooth adapter I found out of luck TBH, I don't even know which pin it is....



It was multi port cable . I really don't mind the cables in the back, I can easily hide them by grouping them under the adapter, however I would really like to get the port at the back to work with the RAP system I think it was, such as the radio which shuts off as soon as you open your door.

 

[$ Khalid ! 9130]

A little update, I have gotten sick and tired of the shitty single coil charger, instead I'm planning to put a Nokia Wireless Charger

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A3NCC5K/?tag=gmtnation-20

The only problem with this charger is it has a propertiery cable, I think it is a 2.5mm DC power cable.

I am thinking of going the easy way and buying one of those car inverters and hooking up the charger into it as I would do in a house power socket. I have seen some cables online, quite expensive but are USB to 2.5mm DC power.

What would be the better approach here?

 

[$ Khalid ! 9130]

Version : 2

Well I got sick and tired of the shitty Belkin charger I had in my TB. So I finally pulled the trigger and got a nice car inverter. Hooked it into the rear cig lighter, plugged in the Nokia Wireless Charger as I would plug it in my house. Works perfectly, now my phone charges all the time in its little cradle and I couldn't be happier.











This was supposed to be the only thing I would plug in to power both my wireless charger and Bluetooth adapter, however as you can see the power adapter of the wireless charger covers the port sadly.

To clean up the wiring and everything, cause it sticks out quite a bit in the back, I plan on getting a cig lighter extension and therefore hide all the stuff including inverter and such under the passenger seat.

Comments and suggestions open

 

[JPutnam]

The DC/AC/DC combo is really bad for power usage. You would be better off using a buck converter that puts out 5V at 3A and is really efficient since it is a form of a switching power supply. I am going to get one for my magnetic cable. There are loads of them on Ebay, but I like this one because it has two female USB ports on it and they can be mounted to a panel if you wanted. I might get a second one and put two ports in my center console near the back.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321349674976

 

[$ Khalid ! 9130]

The DC/AC/DC combo is really bad for power usage. You would be better off using a buck converter that puts out 5V at 3A and is really efficient since it is a form of a switching power supply. I am going to get one for my magnetic cable. There are loads of them on Ebay, but I like this one because it has two female USB ports on it and they can be mounted to a panel if you wanted. I might get a second one and put two ports in my center console near the back.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321349674976

I've got some other mods planned which may do away with the wireless charger for something else, so stay tuned

 

[stickypoop]

 

[JPutnam]

That is a cool setup. I have never seen that before. The only problem there is you cannot use the touchscreen at the same time, but wouldn't be an issue if using Android Auto. It would keep some idiots off the phone while driving though.

My Moto doesn't have wireless charging so I use a Wsken usb cable. It works great, but the magnet is too powerful. It picks up everything and is a little hard to clean. Still, it beats cleaning a usb port any day.

 

[$ Khalid ! 9130]

That is a cool setup. I have never seen that before. The only problem there is you cannot use the touchscreen at the same time, but wouldn't be an issue if using Android Auto. It would keep some idiots off the phone while driving though.

My Moto doesn't have wireless charging so I use a Wsken usb cable. It works great, but the magnet is too powerful. It picks up everything and is a little hard to clean. Still, it beats cleaning a usb port any day.

That's the main feature of that charger to stop you from using your phone. I however use my phone to control music, navigation etc hence I had to forgo that option. I have some great new ideas for in car entertainment for the TB, just have to wait till i get home