LEGO Recharge Station

I'm a comparatively light user of portable electronics - I have one DSLR, one iPod, and one mobile. Still, that's three things I have to remember to keep charged and ready. So, I build this recharge station! It is functional, compact, and acts a visual remind of what hasn't been charged yet.

Due to lack of bricks, this is hollow, with flat face plates at front and back to provide a semblance of solidity. I have some old sweet boxes which are 100% compatible with LEGO, thereby saving me a lot of bricks and use L-shapes to have studs on both front and top of the supporting blocks.

Everything's colour-coded for easy reference.

Note: The ipod cable runs underneath the middle back plate to keep it tidy.

Here I've used a layer of flat plates so I can have a base on which the phone sites. it also has a back rest on which the phone leans, and a 1x4 in the front, since the LEGO studs are prominent enough to stop the phone from slipping forwards.

I have also built up the left side with a flat 1x4 tile, this pushes the power cable up slightly. Without it, the cable (under gravity) pulls the left hand side of the phone down, putting undue strain on the cable.

Note: I gave it a plinth-like backrest because it's the most important gadget here.

Since this unit is powered from the bottom, I had to make a base support to rest on the iPod, but still include a hole for the cable. You will notice that the hole is big enough for the cable, but too small for the plug to slip out of. This is trivially achieved since the other end of this cable is small enough to go through the hole. You could also build the unit around the cable.

The weight of the power cable caused a minor problem. If you try propping it up (like we did with the left/red/mobile) one, then it breaks the tower, because there's only space to have a single column of bricks. If you don't prop it up, the charger will fall out :(

To solve this, I built a canopy which stops the unit from every rotating.

Also note the left hand edge has a 'stop' built in, since you need to withdraw the charger slightly in order to insert the battery. This happens because the charger power is on the left hand side, normally. I had to rotate it so that it can be accessed from the right.