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.
Cell Phone Dock/Stand
I thought it would be cool to have some sort of dock/stand for my phone at work so that I could easily see my notifications without looking down on it flat on my desk. It would great if this could charge at the same time too. I found a few online that I could buy but as you may know, I prefer making things myself. I enjoy the actual designing and building part and you get something unique (not to mention the money you save).
So I went through my box of junk and supplies and brainstormed a few design and material ideas, and I finally came up with this. The structure is made up of spare electronics parts and does a great job of holding my phone up at a good angle. There is enough space so that the micro-usb cable can still be connected so it can charge at the same time. I added some small foam pieces at the bottom so that it doesn’t slip when I use the phone while its in the dock.
The VSK logo in the middle is actually an NFC chip which the phone detects when it comes really close to it. I can set it up to do certain tasks when I put the phone in the dock, like change my ringer to silent, turn wifi on, etc. In this video I had it set to change all my settings for work and say “Welcome to work, VSK”.
Posted in Stuff and tagged custom, vskwith 2 comments.