Smartphone Wireless Charger Mod

For this project I’ve chosen laminate flooring because we had quite a bit left over and it’s always nice to repurpose things, but any other wood or MDF could be used.

I’ve made this as a Valentine’s day present for my other half. He owns a Galaxy S5 with one of those really thick, heavy duty, everything-proof cases, so it was quite difficult to find a Qi charger that would work with it and also the positioning of the coil was crucial.

You could use better Qi charger but I was after a cheap solution and this ended up working quite well.

Step 1: Materials and Tools

Materials:

lonely piece of laminate flooring (MDF or any other wood)
shelf support plug (not necessary)
Qi dual charger
toggle switch
micro USB cable (probably included with Qi charger)
4 rubber feet (originally on the Qi charger)

Tools:

jigsaw
sander
dremel (or dremel wannabe in my case :D)
wire cutters
glue gun
soldering iron

Template Download

Step 2: Cutting

First of all I have measured the phone and made myself a template. The one I included is right size for the Galaxy S5 with really thick case, but you can adjust it to your own size.

I’ve then applied double sided tape on the printed template and stuck that on a piece of laminate flooring.

Then I’ve cut my pieces and sanded down the mistakes left by my “professional” sawing skills. After that I carefully drew the circle for the coil, it took me a while to find the sweet spot. The position I found would most likely work only with the Qi charger and receiver I’ve used so if you’re making this stand, this is probably the most important step, so try to find the perfect spot.

Once I had drawn the circle I grabbed my dremel wannabe tool and hollowed it out, making sure not to damage the top layer. After that I disassembled the Qi charger and with help of the case I marked the slid for LEDs which I then dremeled out as well.

Next was a hole for the switch, shelf support plug and USB cable, I was too lazy to grab a drill so yet again I did it with my trusty wannabe, even though it would’ve been so much easier with a drill.

Once I’ve done the “drilling” a began to take the template off. It took forever and left few sticky spots which I later removed with lighter fluid (alcohol would work just fine).

I then hollowed out the housing for the support plug on the smallest bit and made sure it fits in nicely. This step is not necessary unless you have an extremely heavy phone like my partner (I keep laughing at him whenever he is not wearing a belt because the phone is so heavy that it keeps pulling his pants down 😀 )

Step 3: Gluing

I began chopping pieces off the case, you may not have to do this if it fits in nicely, mine didn’t so by the time I finished I was left with about a half of the plastic case, also it probably would’ve been easier if I took a hand saw to it. I then made sure the holes are aligned and the USBs would fit in fine.

I then glued all of the pieces together, excluding the back one. Next one was the USB cable which I cut half, stripped the ends, joint the negative wire and soldered the positive one onto the switch.

Then I plugged the micro USB into the Qi charger and glued that down as well. At this point I made sure it all works as it should before gluing it all together.

If I was making a similar stand again, instead of cutting the USB cable I would split the red wire from the Qi charger, solder that onto the switch and make another hole at the back for micro USB, so that way it could be unplugged straight from the stand.

Step 4: Sanding

Yet again if my sawing skills were better I could’ve skipped this step, but practice makes perfect so maybe one day 😀

Step 5: Burning

At the beginning of this project I didn’t plan to do any burning at all, but looking at it after the sanding I thought it looked a little boring so I burned all of the visible edges. It didn’t take too long and was quite easy.

I then filled all of the holes that weren’t suppose to be there, mainly my mistakes and the front joint, which I think looks better straight, even though this is not necessary. I’ve also applied the glue onto the burned parts and ran the soldering iron over it to make it nice and smooth. This made it really shiny.

For the end I save the feet from the original Qi charger and stuck them to the bottom.