[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] bcrawford:
I took a lot of inspiration for these projects from some of the stuff I saw posted around here. Like many others, I got tired of the lack of accessories available for the GN and built a few of my own. I was also too impatient to order and wait for the pogo pins that I should have been using for this project, so I used guitar string instead. :silly: Oh well....

The Wooden Desk Dock

This one was fun and It didn't take too long to build. Thanks to chopper the dog for his info in this thread which I used as I was building this. To put this together I used:

a couple pieces of scrap wood for the body,

a paint stirrer cut to size for the platform,

some 46 gauge guitar string for the contacts,

solder,

electrical tape,

a strip of 1/8 inch foam (on the left side. hard to see in the pic) to seat the phone snugly,

a few felt pads for feet,

and, an NFC tag to trigger landscape mode for the phone and it has been working nice.

Ideally, I need to get this thing sanded down a little more, get the tag hidden a little better, and maybe stain or paint it.

The Modified Verizon Car Dock

I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out, but I'm not finished yet. For this one I used:

an old Verizon car charger,

some 46 gauge guitar string for the contacts,

solder,

electrical tape,

two 1/4 inch pieces of spray tube from a can of WD-40 (I used these as guides for the guitar string to slide through),

some CA glue to hold the tube guides in place (We'll see long this lasts...)

a small bolt, nut, and teflon washer,

a short piece of black wire (I used this to secure the power cord to the dock. It was the smallest, nicest looking way of doing it short of using a twist tie, blegh.)

an NFC tag to trigger landscape mode for the phone,

and a Razer sticker to hide my mistake of shaving too much of the back of that Samsung plate away too fast and melting the front (dammit!)

As you can see, up close it's not the prettiest looking job, but with the phone snapped in it looks just fine. I was a huge pain getting those contacts just right, but eventually using those tubes made it much easier. I carved out a section of the soft rubber inside, because it left a mess when I initially drilled through it. It made it really hard to line the contacts up.

I'm going to work on this one a little more today. I want to add a connector to make it possible to break the cord away from the dock and possibly make another cord with a USB connection on the end.

Adding the Connector to the Modified Verizon Car Dock

This was easier than I expected. I started searching around for supplies and found a couple of old cordless handset bases with just what I wanted, some kind of 90 degree connector. I pulled the receptacle from the board inside the base. Since we had multiple bases, I was able to grab two nearly identical plugs.

Then I removed the fixed car charger from my dock and found a suitable place for the receptacle. I soldered the wires in place and fixed the receptacle in place with a zip tie.

I think the zip tie was the best way to go. It's a little tight under the samsung cover.

I used the plugs and spliced them onto to the verizon car charger and a regular usb cable. For anyone who's interested, the wires inside the verizon charger are red (5v) and green (ground).

After a little testing, I decided the receptacle needed another zip tie and a round of CA glue to hold it in place. Here's the finished product. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

I also have another problem I need to work out. I use my 12v socket in the car for my bluetooth receiver. I need to figure out a way to power both in a small compact way. I've seen those 12v socket splitters and I will not put something like that in my car. What do you guys think about trying to fit both of these into one package?

I had a lot of fun working on these over the couple days. Let me know what you guys think