Dial ‘P' for Portable Wireless Phone Charger

Herbert doesn’t have a clue. He does, however, have a dead phone. The Resident Geeks from Digi-Key create a Qi-compliant portable wireless phone charger using a transmitter from Seeed Technology, a Powerboost Board from Adafruit and a Li-Ion battery.

What does it mean for your phone to be Qi compliant? Qi is derived from the Chinese word qi that means “energy flow.” This standardizes wireless energy transfer by the use of coils or inductive charging. To date, this technology has been implemented in a majority of cell phones and other various devices.

The Qi wireless charger transmitter from Seeed Technologies is a user-friendly option for use in a DIY charger. Plug it in to become a fully functioning device. To take it a step further, the rechargeable DC/DC step-up power boost from Adafruit was added. Plugging this 3.7-volt LiPo battery into the power boost enables the charger to become truly wireless so it can be taken anywhere. Just charge the LiPo and it’s ready to go.

To show the diversity, an STL file was downloaded from an open source website, 3D printed and modified into an enclosure for the charger.

This is a very simple project that requires very few parts. If this interests you, but you’d like to dig a little deeper, stay tuned for Digi-Key's wireless car charger, which will be made from scratch.