I'm also keeping track of expressions of interest for other phone model designs. If you want to see a dock for your phone let me know. Enough interest for a particular phone and I'll look at doing a new design!
Current expressions of interest (over the last week or two)
In addition please remember if you want charging capability you will need to either:
1. Install a USB outlet to your cupholder - see DIY below
2. Run an external USB extension to a cigarette lighter USB plug (not a particularly neat option but possible)
If you dont want charging, I recommend ordering a cable with your dock anyway and cutting off the excess cable. The lightning connector will help keep your phone in place!
See below for background on the design
************Beginning of original thread*******************
Hi all. Thought I would share a DIY I've been having a bit of fun with lately.
The project came about because I wanted a place to put my phone in the car where it could charge and not rattle around all the time. I know there are clip on style ones available for vents/windscreen but decided to try come up with something a little neater/integrated with the car.
My idea was to integrate a charger and dock into the existing space where the VW bottle opener sits in the cup holder area (Mkv golf). It's an area that doesn't really get used and I certainly dont use 2 cups/bottles there at once! I could also take advantage of the way the bottle opener "slides" in. ie. Design a dock to do exactly the same thing as a means of keeping it fixed in place.
Initial concept of how the phone might "sit" within the console
Measured up the bottle opener with some calipers, measured up the phone and this is what I came up with - First cut of the design in solid works
You can make out the charging pin below. Integrating it with the dock was a small challenge. Somehow a charging cable needed to be threaded through the dock and the pin fixed in place. Ended up designing a small "channel" underneath the dock to allow threading of the cable, and a recess to accept the head of the pin. The charging pin press fits into the dock - no glue or anything required.
First prototype 3d printed in abs- a few minor clearance issues still to be sorted out
Underneath - the channel that allows the charging pin to be inserted
Inserting the charging pin
And now the phone! Should mention that I designed it based on the phone 5 platform (5,5c,5s). But the great thing is this could be done easily on virtually any phone platform with a few tweaks to the design
Comparison with the bottle opener
By this stage I'd already had a good think about how to source the power for the charger. I wanted to tap into the cigarette lighter and route direct to the cupholders. However, I wasn't too keen on drilling anything through the console plastic itself to route the cable.
There are 2 small rubber mats on the base of the cupholders - these are easily removable. Underneath are pre-formed holes which help the mats "key" into place.
What I found was these are just large enough to fit the charging pin through, and the mat can be slotted back into place with virtually no interference. Although I am using the "flat" type profile cable, I did test with a circular profile and its virtually as good.
Obviously I still need to pull the console apart and tap the power of the cigarette lighter - that will be the next stage of the project. What is also needed is a 12V to 5v converter (phone chargers only take 5v). Fairly easy to source on eBay but will take a week or two from china.
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