Wireless iPod charger built from scratch




[via Make]

20 thoughts on “Wireless iPod charger built from scratch

    1. And then you can make a nice mouse pad which has the Tx coil! That would be very cool. I have a horrible little wireless mouse Maybe I will give that a go. Could do some tests to see if it would interfere with the RF.

    2. I actually bought a wireless mouse that had such a system.

      I got it at Fry’s Electronics 2 years ago and it was dirt cheap (something like 20 bucks).

      I don’t remember the model number but I believe it was sold under the “Inland” noname brand.

      It worked pretty well as long as your didn’t run off the powered mousepad.

  1. I always thought it would be very cool to build a charging station using this technology to power an aeroquad/quadcopter or other RC.

    What kinda distance can you charge at? Could you wirelessly power an aeroquad?

  2. Nice for proof of concept, but as is with all similar projects are, but a long ways from being day to day practical. Need to select a frequency so the required receiver can be made much smaller than they are now. Personally I’d settle for a drop in charging base being made available by the manufacturer for less than a mint.

  3. Could just hack the inductive charging system used by all electric rechargeable toothbrushes for the past several years.

    Somewhere along the line someone in government regulation convinced themselves 2 or 3 volts at a very tiny current on bare contacts was an electrocution hazard and forced the industry of rechargeable teethbrushes (you use em on your teeth, not just one tooth!) to change to induction systems.

    Did anyone ever die from a rechargeable toothbrush in the 1970’s or 1980’s?

    1. The question is that you have open contacts in a device that sits in your bathroom, where, if the transformer of the device is broken, has a flaw or gets water into it, may pass on the line voltage to the socket of your toothbrush.

  4. The instructable claims 3Amps at 12V….

    Thats 36W to charge a 2.5W (5V @500ma) device, does anyone think this is ridiculous? thats less than 7% efficient.

    I’ve just completed my University project which was making a wireless charging system, and I was achieving up to 47% efficient.

    Assuming 3 hours charging a day, thats 36KWH wasted power…..

  5. Hi, excellent post. This set me thinking, what if you could have a coil perfectly resonant to say 50 or 60 of the mains supply. All you’d need to do to charge any usb device is place the coil near any mains carrying cable. Free electricity anyone? Am I way of the mark or could it be done?

  6. Coreless inductive power transfer is an exercise in seeing how much electricity can be wasted. Adding ferrite cores (or even simple pieces of iron or steel) would allow for a much smaller set of coils and much more efficient power transfer.

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s