Raspberry Pi Forums

I have seen wireless charging mats before, and was thinking how cool it would be if we could just toss our raspberry pi onto a desk to turn it on. Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and the only cable you would need would be HDMI. Anyone else think that a completely wireless desktop would be cool?

jomoto10 wrote:Anyone else think that a completely wireless desktop would be cool?

I do, and I have a set of these inductive charging coils from Adafruit in my toy box, but haven't got around to playing with them. They might prove a little underpowered...

That's cool! You should PM me if you ever get it working.

what kind of voltage/current do you get out of the other end? sounds like fun to me...

dan3008 wrote:what kind of voltage/current do you get out of the other end? sounds like fun to me...

Referring to the Adafruit coils:
The description says 5V 500mA max. Barely enough to run a model B 'headless'
Although the concept seems interesting, It would be cumbersome to implement for a RPi.
- The primary coil needs a 9-12V power supply connected at all times.
- The 2 coils need to be perfectly aligned at all times.... taped together... any slight movement and the RPi will likely crash.

My plan is to run the Pi on a LiPo, with the secondary connected to an on-board charger. And then a stand for the primary that will position the Pi to align the coils. I did some tests with two layers of 1mm acrylic between the coils, and I think it just might work. Better for a Model A, it just might discharge more slowly than it charges, but the use case is really for overnight charging, like my phone. I readily admit it's more fun than practical (might as well use pogo pins, since alignment is critical anyways).

Not sure if it would work, but couldn't you also use a set of magnets to align the coils? That way if they get separated the should just magnetise back in place.

I know that inductive charging works in mobile but I'm not quite sure if it will work in desktop.