I Made a Super Cheap Wireless Charging Table with Stuff from Ikea.

I wanted to try out a built in wireless charger, but I didn’t particularly want to cut a hole in my desk or anything, so I started looking online at IKEA for a cheap little table to mess around with. To my surprise, they actually sell wireless charging units made to go into a surface. I ended up buying a RALLEN wireless charging pad and the cheapest table they had, which ended up being a LACK side table. I also picked up a FIXA hole saw kit, and already had a Milwaukee drill. Total cost including the saw set was about $28 after tax.

 

I threw the table together, it basically just amounts to screwing the legs in, and took it all out on my front porch because I didn’t want a living room full of saw dust.

The RALLEN charger allows you to mount it a few different ways. It comes with a trim ring but using it is optional. I opted to use it because this is a super cheap table and I thought there might be a little of bit of roughness around the hole. I would leave it out in good solid wood for a smaller overall footprint. If you’re using the trim ring, use the biggest hole saw in the kit. I believe mounting it without uses the next size down.

I went with what I felt was the most natural placement. The side with the hole will be close to the end of the couch, so if you drop your arm down you land about where the charging pad is. Cutting the hole was super easy, this table is made of thin particle board. Yes, that paper is the filler inside of it, lol.

From there, you separate the charger from the trim ring, drop the trim ring in, route the cord through it, then push the charging pad down into the trim ring. There’s pretty much no way to screw this up. Just push the thing down until it’s fully seated.

I have some pretty serious cable management to do over there, but now there’s a table by my couch that will charge both mine and Daisy’s phone just by setting it on the table. I might start looking at doing this to a nicer table soon, but for now, and for the money, I’m pretty damn happy with it.