A Magic Wireless Charging Table for less than $30

A Simple IKEA Hacking Project

As I write this, 4 of the 5 members of my family have phones that support wireless charging. In this Era of COVID Quarantine and Zoom School, I thought I’d do a very simple hacking project — a small DIY Project that mounts a Wireless Charger underneath the surface of a shelf, desk or table. When you put your phone on the surface of the table just above the spot where the charger is mounted — poof, it starts charging! magically! with no charging pad in sight. This is a simple, easy DIY project, that will cost you less than $30 in parts, and can be completed in under an hour with some tools you most likely have in the house.

A little bit of background on Wireless Charging:

Without going into too much detail, for the purposes of this project, there are two things you need to know about wireless charging:

1. Your phone doesn’t need to actually be touching the pad to charge, but the bigger the gap, the less efficient the charge — Try this at home if you already have a wireless charger — put a thin booklet or magazine between your phone and the charging pad — in most cases, your phone will still wirelessly charge, now try two, three, four — eventually, your phone will no longer be able to charge because it’s just too far from the pad — but if there is only a thin layer between your phone and the charging pad, it will still charge, so it will definitely work with the pad being mounted below the table if the table top is thin enough.
2. Not all wireless chargers are created equal — more wattage gives you more power and distance — Without going into too much detail, the more wattage you get from the charger, the faster your phone can recharge. Most Samsung/Google Phones can be charged at up to 10W wirelessly, and most iPhones can be charged at up to 7.5W wirelessly. Also understand, that charging through the table top (and the case on your phone as well) will slightly degrade your wireless charging power.

If you want to learn more, you might want to read this article from Popular Science: https://www.popsci.com/how-to-choose-wireless-smartphone-charger/

Now, a word about the Furniture:

I chose IKEA furniture for this project for two reasons: a)It’s inexpensive, and b) Some of their shelving/desktops/side tables have a hollow center with only a thin veneer of wood as the surface (the center is filled with corrugated cardboard to support the structure of the table). These two attributes combined give me a piece of furniture that I am not afraid to destroy and that will most likely give me the best charging experience.

The particular IKEA Table I chose is the LACK side table — https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lack-side-table-white-30449908/

This table costs $10, but more importantly, is the little description of the tabletop materials in this screenshot below:

This table has the cardboard honeycomb filling, which means it will be relatively easy to mount the Wireless charger just below the surface.Most of IKEA’s LACK series and their LINNMON Desktops/Tabletops are built this way. (You can easily check the Environment and Materials Section on the product page to make sure)

Tools You Will Need For This Project:

• A drill
• A drill bit the width of the narrower side of your USB cable for the charging pad
• A small saw, knife, or circular hole cutter drill attachment
• Wood Glue

Parts You Will need For this Project:

• A LACK Side Table ($10 at IKEA)— https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lack-side-table-black-20011408/
• A 10w Wireless Charging Pad — (I recommend this one from Anker, roughly $10 on Amazon) https://amzn.to/3cj9Ois (NOTE: Any 10W charging pad will work, but make sure the charging pad you get has a removable USB Cable!)
• A Power Brick — (like this one from Power Bear, roughly $10 on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3besHlv)

(Ikea also sells a wireless charging pad without a cable, and it costs $5, it’s called LIVBOJ — the caveat is that it’s max power output is 5W, which means your phone will take a lot longer to get a full charge. You can buy a Wireless Charging Pad, USB cable, and Charging brick from Ikea for about $17)

Steps to Build It:

1. Figure out where you want to put the charging pad on the table. Note that the Wood outer frame of the Lack, extends about 3" around the perimeter of the table, so you likely want to mount your charging pad in that area.
2. Cut a hole on the bottom of the table that is big enough to fit your charging pad through.
3. Remove the Cardboard Honeycomb from the area around your hole, towards the nearest edge of the table — clear enough cardboard until you can feel the inside edge of the tables wood frame.
4. On the side edge of the table opposite the area you just cleaned, drill a hole the width of the smaller head of your USB cable. When you are done, your drill should be poking through the area that you cleared away.
5. Clean any debris, dust or dirt from the inside of the hole. Before gluing the pad to the top of the surface of the table, make sure you orient the pad in a way that it will be easy for you to connect and disconnect the wire from it.
6. Using the wood glue, apply a narrow bead of glue around the edge of your charging pad and glue it to the bottom of the table top through the hole. Make sure that the charging pad is facing the correct direction (you want the glue to be on the side that charges)
7. Allow the glue to dry as per the label’s directions
8. Thread the narrower head of the USB cable through the hole you drilled, and plug it into the charging pad
9. Plug the opposite end of the USB cable into your charging brick.
10. Finish building the table by adding the legs. If you’d like you can tape over the hole on the bottom or use a metal wall repair patch to cover it.
11. Plug the table in and start charging!

I know that textual steps aren’t as good as the video. I hope to put one together soon.