Monday, March 7, 2016

I was annoyed at my phone laying flat on my desk at work -- it was hard to read the screen at that angle -- so I...

I was annoyed at my phone laying flat on my desk at work -- it was hard to read the screen at that angle -- so I built a charging cradle out of LEGO. Click on the image to see a Photos gallery of the cradle and how the connector fits.

The secret ingredient was a right-angle micro-USB adapter ($5 for a pack of two; see below for link). The charging cable (a normal phone micro-USB cable) slides into the slot on the left and plugs into the right-angle adapter. With that in place, the phone slides right in the slot and charging starts.

Another nifty thing about using the right-angle adapter is that for phones like Samsungs, which have their micro-USB sockets upside down, I could just reverse the build left-to-right, flip the adapter over, and it would work for those devices as well.

I also built in a cable clip to keep the USB cable routed underneath the cradle. Plus, unlike cradles you pay actual money for, I can adjust the angle of this one to fit my preferences perfectly just by adding or removing bricks on the bottom.

Right-angle micro-USB adapter: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S4XJ9WA (There are many others available...these are the ones I happened to purchase.)
https://goo.gl/photos/JVEEMM97BotUcps88

2 comments:

Now I'm doubly intrigued!

Now I'm doubly intrigued!