Truly Wireless Charging In The Car

iLikeTurtuls · Mar 26, 2014

DONE! (kinda, still waiting on my magnets)

Behold, wireless charging in your car! No more tacky wires(well, in a way), no weird looking dock.

Items Needed for this exact project

Lexus IS300, any year, without navigation
Nexus 5 (or pretty much any other QI enabled device)
Soldering iron
Qi Charger
Lots of patience, 30 minutes to an hour of time
Small amount of soldering skills (just 2 soldering points)
A power source behind the "scenes" (panels), in this case, a GROM Audio device with a 5V output USB (female)
Micro USB cable that you are fine with leaving in the car
I think that's it.

Now, here's how I did it.

This is a wireless charger($11 cheap one off eBay, they have tons on there, output is 1A), torn down to its bare essentials. No more plastic. With the help of a soldering iron, I desoldered the plugs from the charging area to the middle piece that has the light to fit into...

This!

Well this, my Center console vent that is in my IS (No navi

)

Top View.

Bottom Views, last one with the cable plugged in.

Now, it is installed! Notice that the panel fits on top without any modifying to the panels, except for the actual charger itself.
Now how does it power up you ask?

With the help of my Grom audio device (which also gives me aux on my stock Lexus Stereo.) I left the USB plug in access in the glove compartment, just incase anything bad happens, or to not waste energy on the charger when I don't need it. Trying to figure out how to make my glove compartment less messy, but so far this is the best that I can do.

Note, no video. I will have that posted sometime, I just recorded it off an iPhone, so I will need to edit it so you get the full effect. Or not, I will probably just upload it, it will just take a few days.

Now, I want someone to do this, but even better than I did! Anything is possible!

vin4yak · Mar 26, 2014

Best of luck m8! That does sound amazing

Make sure the magnets are strong, otherwise a simple speed bump will toss away your nexus

daniel_loft · Mar 27, 2014

You could try some HDD Neodymium magnets taken out of a HDD.

iLikeTurtuls · Mar 28, 2014

daniel_loft said:
You could try some HDD Neodymium magnets taken out of a HDD.

Turns out the magnets I ordered are Neodymium, so I shall see how it works in a few days.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

iLikeTurtuls · Mar 28, 2014

Bumping because it is pretty much finished.

dieselbuddeh · Mar 28, 2014

iLikeTurtuls said:
DONE! (kinda, still waiting on my magnets)

Behold, wireless charging in your car! No more tacky wires(well, in a way), no weird looking dock.

Items Needed for this exact project

Lexus IS300, any year, without navigation
Nexus 5 (or pretty much any other QI enabled device)
Soldering iron
Qi Charger
Lots of patience, 30 minutes to an hour of time
Small amount of soldering skills (just 2 soldering points)
A power source behind the "scenes" (panels), in this case, a GROM Audio device with a 5V output USB (female)
Micro USB cable that you are fine with leaving in the car
I think that's it.

Now, here's how I did it.

This is a wireless charger($11 cheap one off eBay, they have tons on there, output is 1A), torn down to its bare essentials. No more plastic. With the help of a soldering iron, I desoldered the plugs from the charging area to the middle piece that has the light to fit into...

This!

Well this, my Center console vent that is in my IS (No navi )

Top View.

Bottom Views, last one with the cable plugged in.

Now, it is installed! Notice that the panel fits on top without any modifying to the panels, except for the actual charger itself.
Now how does it power up you ask?

With the help of my Grom audio device (which also gives me aux on my stock Lexus Stereo.) I left the USB plug in access in the glove compartment, just incase anything bad happens, or to not waste energy on the charger when I don't need it. Trying to figure out how to make my glove compartment less messy, but so far this is the best that I can do.

Note, no video. I will have that posted sometime, I just recorded it off an iPhone, so I will need to edit it so you get the full effect. Or not, I will probably just upload it, it will just take a few days.

Now, I want someone to do this, but even better than I did! Anything is possible!

Pircture links are broken. Try imgur album.

Andrew149 · Mar 30, 2014

Update on pics please

compuw22c · Mar 30, 2014

Andrew149 said:
Update on pics please

So I have some info to offer that may help people with this project. I did the same in the center console of my Miata, and here's a few things that may help people. First my setup.

Qi charger laying flat in center console, foam around the edges to keep the phone from moving (with a hole in the foam at the bottom, this is important). Immediately behind it I installed a fan because the phone would otherwise overheat because: I'm also running appradio unchained to an appradio head unit AND using a netgear push2tv for wireless display to the head unit.

This is a very nice setup, with a few flaws and considerations:
1. Phone likes to get hot and either barely charge or just maintain charge: the fan certainly helps, but also the phone being in a closed space with very low auto brightness helps keep this manageable
2. Must QI chargers will not accept straight vehicle voltage. My energizer pad would stop working as the voltage varied up to 14.3v when the car was running. As a result I added a simple few dollar voltage regulator inline to keep the voltage as close to 12v as possible. I should have tried to add in a delay as well since sometimes restarting tthe car will cause a momentary voltage drop big enough to confuse the charger, but it won't restart after the car does, leaving it flashing at me in error. This can also be solved by just going straight from off to start, and it doesn't happen all the time, so I'm dealing with it till I open it back up again.

Hope this helps someone

iLikeTurtuls · Mar 31, 2014

thepoetlives89 said:
Pircture links are broken. Try imgur album.

Fixed, thank you for the idea.

compuw22c said:
Qi charger laying flat in center console, foam around the edges to keep the phone from moving (with a hole in the foam at the bottom, this is important). Immediately behind it I installed a fan because the phone would otherwise overheat because: I'm also running appradio unchained to an appradio head unit AND using a netgear push2tv for wireless display to the head unit.

This is a very nice setup, with a few flaws and considerations:
1. Phone likes to get hot and either barely charge or just maintain charge: the fan certainly helps, but also the phone being in a closed space with very low auto brightness helps keep this manageable
2. Must QI chargers will not accept straight vehicle voltage. My energizer pad would stop working as the voltage varied up to 14.3v when the car was running. As a result I added a simple few dollar voltage regulator inline to keep the voltage as close to 12v as possible. I should have tried to add in a delay as well since sometimes restarting tthe car will cause a momentary voltage drop big enough to confuse the charger, but it won't restart after the car does, leaving it flashing at me in error. This can also be solved by just going straight from off to start, and it doesn't happen all the time, so I'm dealing with it till I open it back up again.

Hope this helps someone

The cable that I bought from grom audio outputs 5v (does not list the Amps.) Knowing a little bit of info about car chargers and how it pretty much rushes the power to the device before calming down after a second or 2, I made sure the USB is accessible in the glove compartment, as shown in picture 10. The wiring is a little messy, but I barely had time to install the unit.
Regarding the heat, I have an iPhone that I used for music (it was cheaper for me to buy it than buying an iPod), and a stock stereo so I don't have to worry about the heat too much, but being on the dash will definitely heat it up, along with the charging itself, especially during the heat. I'll most likely be using it at night, or on long trips, mainly because I have not got magnets to hold it down. I tried the hard drive magnets, however the ones I received were too small (the said 1x3, so I assume CM but it was MM.) I have a dead hard drive, which I might use for the magnets. I am looking for a magnet thats like the size of a quarter and 1mm thin, so pretty much a magnet quarter or penny hahah. If the magnet from my HDD don't work, then back to eBay again!

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Truly Wireless Charging In The Car

iLikeTurtuls

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vin4yak

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daniel_loft

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iLikeTurtuls

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iLikeTurtuls

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dieselbuddeh

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Andrew149

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compuw22c

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