DIY Qi Wireless Charger

Among various Arduino projects on the blog spot site, a DIY task has been published by Ams Gold that explains as to how anyone can make a wireless charger at home and that too at the minimum possible cost. The idea clicked his mind when he bought a Samsung charger for $60 and felt the need to buy another one. But this time, he didn’t want to spend that much amount and thus eventually he built his own Qi wireless charger for less than $15.

 

 

 

Basically, he acquired a charging pad from eBay and then set it up to be used for charging his mobile phone without any wires and cables. Although a Qi wireless charger has become quite popular now but one has to ensure that his/her mobile phone is compatible with the system as all of them don’t support this facility. In this setup, a cell phone is simply kept on the base of the charger and it gets charged without having to connect it with any cable or socket. However, the charger needs to be connected to the power supply. 

 

It’s a simple project with minimal cost involved and no complex materials are needed to carry out the procedure. First, Ams bought a Qi wireless charger PCBA circuit board accompanied by 3 coil wireless charging pad at USD 9.55 along with a mobile stand. Discussing the configuration, the circuit board has an LED lamp attached to it and a pin is connected to the pad serving as a temperature probe. Further, there are 3 sections- top, bottom, and centre on the board and from each of them, two pins are connected to each of the 3 coils. 

 

In order to set everything in place, Ams took the mobile stand and placed the wireless pad on it such that both pad and the board were accommodated properly on the stand. Then he plugged a cable into the micro USB port on the circuit board and kept the LED lamp on the top. After this, he covered the whole arrangement in a yellow tape so as to conceal all the electronic parts with the LED lamp being visible at the top. 

 

Then after plugging to a socket and switching on the power he kept the phone on the stand and its battery started getting charged. The LED lamp shows a green signal when the device is charging. If the lamp doesn’t glow one has to reposition the mobile phone to make sure that it works well. One can also cover this with a decorative or designer tape which would make it look even nicer. 

 

Before the user keeps his/her phone on this wireless charger, there are two important things that should be kept in mind. Firstly, the device should be Qi-compliant i.e. it should support the wireless charging facility. Secondly, if the mobile phone is enclosed in a case with a thickness of more than 5mm, it is likely to prevent the charging. So such kind of covers should be removed before implementing the project. 

Here is a video posted by Ams Gold whereby one could clearly see as to how this DIY wireless charger is arranged and how does it work.