Cheap Nexus 4 charging orb mount
Thread Starter
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 198
Likes: 1
From: Toronto
Hey y'all. Just made a pretty useful dock for my Nexus 4 that goes into the cupholder and I thought I'd share.
Materials:
Pencil holder $1.25 from Dollarama
Charging orb $60 from Google
Nexus 4
Electrical tape
Tools:
Wire cutters or scissors
Opposable thumbs
The orb is smaller than the cup holder so i got a pencil holder at the dollar store for $1.25 that covers the gap just right.
The pencil holder is a bit long so had to chop off the base and about 1/2 inch. Then bend in another half inch so it doesn't catch onto anything while going in.
Turns out its really malleable so I bent in the top slightly top give the orb something to rest on.
Use a bit of black electrical tape to make sure it's snug. I needed 4 rounds of it.
Plug in the orb to a USB cable(I used a flat one from eBay) and jam it into the pencil holder. Leave it about 1/8 inch protruding out from the top and put the while thing into the cup holder.
Voila. All done. Mine is plugged into the power inside the center armrest cubby. No probs with battery drain since the orb doesn't draw much power at all while idle. The phone stays put once placed on the orb since its really sticky, it hasn't budged even once.
Ideally I'd like to run the USB cable through between the cupholder and the trim but haven't figured out how to take the cup holder off just yet...
Overall I love how I can jut throw on my phone onto the dock now. No messing with wires! Also have tasker detecting that its on the dock and switches WiFi tethering on that feeds to my Nexus 7 mounted onto the stock CD player.
Hope this helps someone!
Cheers,
-Munir
Materials:
Pencil holder $1.25 from Dollarama
Charging orb $60 from Google
Nexus 4
Electrical tape
Tools:
Wire cutters or scissors
Opposable thumbs
The orb is smaller than the cup holder so i got a pencil holder at the dollar store for $1.25 that covers the gap just right.
The pencil holder is a bit long so had to chop off the base and about 1/2 inch. Then bend in another half inch so it doesn't catch onto anything while going in.
Turns out its really malleable so I bent in the top slightly top give the orb something to rest on.
Use a bit of black electrical tape to make sure it's snug. I needed 4 rounds of it.
Plug in the orb to a USB cable(I used a flat one from eBay) and jam it into the pencil holder. Leave it about 1/8 inch protruding out from the top and put the while thing into the cup holder.
Voila. All done. Mine is plugged into the power inside the center armrest cubby. No probs with battery drain since the orb doesn't draw much power at all while idle. The phone stays put once placed on the orb since its really sticky, it hasn't budged even once.
Ideally I'd like to run the USB cable through between the cupholder and the trim but haven't figured out how to take the cup holder off just yet...
Overall I love how I can jut throw on my phone onto the dock now. No messing with wires! Also have tasker detecting that its on the dock and switches WiFi tethering on that feeds to my Nexus 7 mounted onto the stock CD player.
Hope this helps someone!
Cheers,
-Munir
Last edited by munir; Apr 29, 2013 at 03:50 AM.
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 365
Likes: 1
From: Steilacoom, WA
Reply
That is clean. I want to hard mount my nexus 7 up top by radio or counsel by windshield. and baught some hook ups for the amps needed for nexus 7. I just am not sure where to hook the 12 volt upto. Thinking either cig lighter wires or ignition, but I never messed with canbus. Any help appreciated. Doug.