Cheap and Easy Magnetic Wireless Car Qi Charger

Just a quick tutorial on my cheap and easy magnetic qi car charger. Total cost for this project was under $35.00 and it took me about 10 mins to put together.

Here are the items I used.

1. Choetech T511 Qi charger

2. 4 - 1/2" x 1/16" rare earth magnet

3. 8 - 1/2" x 1/32" rare earth magnet

4. CD slot smartphone car mount There are plenty of car mounting options you could choose.

5. #00 precision phillips screw driver

Flip the charger over and remove the 4 rubber pads. They are stuck on with adhesive, so just pry them off. Then remove the 4 screws under the pads.

The construction inside is very simple. There is the case, the rubber grip, the charger coil attached to its circuit board, and a metal plate.

During my experiments I used hot glue, but it started to melt in my car while the sun was beating down on it. So during my file design I used super glue and it works like a charm. I prefer the gel because it is less messy, but takes just a little longer to dry. Like 30 to 50 seconds.

So first I glued down the rubber grip so it wouldn't pop out. The magnets installed later push the lid up slightly and cause the rubber grip to fall out of place.

Next I glued down the 4 - 1/2" x 1/16" magnets in place. Depending on the weight of your phone you can add 4 1/2" x 1/32" magnets directly on top of the other magnets to improve strength. Anymore than that and the phone will be too far from the coil to charge.

Next I cut out a thin piece of cardboard that would fit in my phone case and glued magnets to it. Positioning the magnets was easy as I turned over the charger case and place the cardboard on top, then placed the magnets to where they stuck. You could always glue the magnets directly to the case but I felt it would be easy to upgrade my case later by making something removable.

Also, place a thin piece of paper in between the magnets and the back of the phone if you are concerned about the magnets scratching the phone.

Things to note:

Placement of the magnets is phone specific. I just got my Samsung S8 and if a magnet is placed near the lower right corner of the back of the phone, then it disables the screen brightness adjustment. So make sure to check your phone limitations. Placing magnets higher on my phone fixed the issue.

The nice thing about the Choetech charger is the case is wide and tall enough to use different magnet placements.

Finally, reassemble the charger, replace the screws and rubber pads. Adding the car charger to the car was easy using the cd slot phone mount. You can mount the charger in your car a variety of ways. Just find something best suited for your car.

And Viola!!!! You now have a wireless Qi car charger.

I made a second one for my wifes car and am thinking of making a couple to place around the house and on my nightstand. I will be mounting it to the side of my nightstand that faces my bed. When I go to sleep I have an NFC disc on my charger that activates nighttime functions on my phone and turns it into a clock and a video monitor for my home surveillance cameras.

Using the trigger app on android you can automate tasks and activate them using an NFC tag. Using an NFC tag in the car can switch your phone to a driving mode when placed on the charger.

Here are some links for those.

Whiztags or on Amazon

Trigger app

Have fun!!!!