Every time I hear about wireless power systems, or see a wireless charger in action, it feels like some sort of crazy magic. The idea of harnessing an electromagnetic field to produce enough power to even glow an LED is amazing to me.
So, when Adafruit started to carry a couple of Inductive Charging modules, I knew I had to create a project with it beyond just charging a battery.
I often go to bed much later than my wife, and like to do a bit of reading before going to sleep. I decided to create a nice little night light / reading light that I could easily set at just the right brightness without waking up my wife. With this light, all you need to do is slide the LED block closer to the power block to make the light brighter.
It’s a bit of a hack, which takes advantage of the fact that the inductive chargers work ‘better’ the closer they are together. In this case, pulling them apart dims the LEDs because the voltage drops. This won’t work with Qi chargers, which don’t have this ‘bug’! I mean, you can still use a Qi charger, but it will only be on or off, no dimming.
The Wireless Inductive Power Night Light is a very simple and easy to complete project. All you need is to make one is an inductive charging set, a power supply, leds, an enclosure, and couple other pieces.
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