When it comes to interior design, I’m a big fan of minimalism — which one can notice from the photo of my workplace (and that’s how it looks in real life and not only on the photo).
Long time I wished to build a wireless Qi phone charger right into my desk so that I could charge my mobile by simply laying it down onto the desktop.
There was an issue though. My desktop is a sheet of 10 mm-thick hardened glass, and common wireless chargers only support charging over a distance up to 8 mm.
Recently I have been able to find a solution to this and make it exactly the way I wanted.
The solution
The solution came from AliExpress in the form of a long-distance Qi charger, priced at about € 14 including shipping:
The seller claims the charger is able to function over distances of up to 20 mm, and that indeed seems plausible.
The rest was a matter of implementation. I removed the desktop and placed the wireless transmitter under it, using a couple of rubber pads so that it would gently press against the downside of the desktop:
The charger is then connected to a regular USB adapter:
The next step was to replace the desktop and mark the spot where the mobile was to be put, since there was no clue as to where exactly the charger was beneath it.
I used a silver metallic marker to draw two concentric circles right above the central point of the transmitter. Such a mark is both visually pleasing and wipe-resistant:
And voilà: once you put the phone down on the mark the charging starts. Magic!
The charger proved to work perfectly, it always recognises the phone and charges it fully in a couple of hours. The current drawn from the USB adapter is about 1.5 А.
Where to buy
I bought it from this seller on AliExpress. ■
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