Car Dock
After the cheap suction cup mounted phone stand in my car broke, I started looking at alternative ways to hold up my phone while driving,so I could use it for navigation and other purposes. I often prefer to build something myself rather than buying it, because I can customize it to my liking and have a unique and functional product. I recently bought a wireless qi charger for my phone, and I thought it would be most convenient for using in the car – instead of looking for the usb cable and plugging it in, I could just put my phone over the charger and it would start charging, wirelessly. I needed some way to keep the phone against the charger, and I wanted a holder for navigation, so I decided to combine the two together and make a charger/holder. For this I rummaged through my box of random parts and supplies until I found a piece of metal that I had taken out of some old electronics. I rounded the corners, removing all sharp edges, and bent it to form an arm, which I attached around the charger. I also lined the inside of the arm with some pieces of felt so it wouldn’t scratch the phone while holding it. Because the metal is bendable, I could adjust the arm to hold a wider or thinner phone. I didn’t want to do any permanent damage to my car so I used some adhesive velcro to attach the holder to the dash in front of the steering wheel. It held up great for a few days but eventually fell of from heat and weight. So I cut and painted a popsicle stick and attached it as a leg of sorts, to hold up the weight of the charger and phone. Now I just keep my car charger cable into the wireless charger, and my phone automatically starts charging as soon as I slide it into the holder. I also added an NFC chip ( just like on my other dock) which lets the phone detect it is in the holder and change settings automatically. Even when I don’t use the NFC or wireless charging, I do use the holder while driving every day.
Pictures of the process:
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- Wireless Charger
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- Junk and parts
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- Metal piece cut and bent
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- metal attached to charger
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- Added felt to prevent scratches
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- Added felt to prevent scratches
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- Temporarily attached together
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- Holder attached to dash
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- NFC tag added
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- Vertical Support
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- Holding phone
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- Side View
Posted in Stuff and tagged custom, electronic, phone, vskwith no comments yet.
Carbon-Fiber Briefcase Makeover
I know many viewers prefer looking at pictures over reading paragraphs, so I’ll try to keep this brief. When travelling for magic shows I usually keep my equipment and props in a briefcase. Unfortunately after a few years of travelling and lugging around my stuff, my briefcase broke apart. I found an older Briefcase we had lying around which was in great condition from the inside, but didn’t look so great from the outside. So instead of spending $100 on a new one, I thought I would try to “renovate” the one we already had. Since it would be difficult to paint over the glossy surface, I decided to use my new favorite material – Carbon Fiber vinyl. I’m quite happy with the final product! In addition to looking and feeling like a brand new briefcase, its totally unique!
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- Before:
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- After:
Posted in Stuff and tagged amasingh, carbon, case, custom, fiber, magic, magician, vskwith no comments yet.
Carbon Fiber Wallet
Having served me well over 2 years, the VSK Clay Wallet was finally nearing the end of its life cycle. Therefore, I once again set out on a quest to find the successor of my personal VSK wallet line; what material would be worthy?
Ah yes, Carbon Fiber.
Inspired by the designs on my car, I ordered some Carbon Fiber textured adhesive vinyl. This material, being very thin, needed some sort of stronger skeleton underneath. Naturally, I chose playing cards ( being a magician and all.) The card stock base combined with a carbon fiber overlay resulted in a wallet that was extremely thin, light, and sturdy. With the experience of many wallets behind me, I was able to plan the construction such that the wallet would be virtually seamless. I have to say this is probably my most favorite and “cleanest looking” wallet to date. Without further ado, here it is:
Posted in Stuff and tagged cards, custom, vsk, walletswith no comments yet.
Be a VSK model!
Do you own a VSK Shirt? Want to model it for us? Send us your best shot!
In preparation for the upcoming release of the new VSK Store, we are collecting and taking images of people wearing our shirts. These will posted on the store webpage along with the product description. Details below.
Nidhaan Singh wearing “Babbar Sher” Shirt
Send in a picture of yourself wearing a VSK shirt:
If you already own one of our shirts ( iKirtan, Satnam, CK, got lassi?, etc) you can have someone take a picture of you or your friends and submit it. The picture should preferably be taken outdoors in good lighting and with a high quality camera (DSLR recommended). No mirror shots please. All submissions should be sent to store@vikramkhalsa.com in highest resolution possible, along with your name and location. By submitting an image you give us the right to use that image on our website, if it is selected. Your name will only be used on the picture if you choose to have it displayed.
Since we want to have all the pictures collected soon, we don’t have time to ship a t-shirt to anyone. So this is for people who already have a shirt or those who can come in person for a shoot. If you own a good camera and would like to volunteer to take pictures of people, please let us know (it doesn’t matter where you are). In either case, send an email to store@vikramkhalsa.com to be a part of this.
Posted in Eventswith no comments yet.