Ebook Prestigio Libretto charging cradle

Ebook reader is an unexpectedly useful thing; allows carrying around more books than what's one's own weight and one always has a wide choice of nice reading materials. It also allows comfortable reading of materials acquired off the Internet. However, as it is electronics, it needs charging; normally this is achieved by plugging a cable to the USB port, which also serves for charging. The reader is then laid to somewhere; can be on the bedside, on the floor, or anywhere else. Usually it sooner or later gets something else placed on itself, or stepped on, or spilled tea on, or any other sort of mayhem that naturally affects freely placed devices. And finding the cable is annoying. In a fixed environment, a fixed installation is better.

An approach was chosen that was successfully applied to a cellphone charger earlier; a cradle was hand-moulded from polycaprolactone (Shapelock, Polymorph, etc.) using the ebook reader itself as a jig. A microUSB connector, obtained from the original charging cable, is molded into the material; to avoid hassle with cables a standard-size USB B connector was chosen to be moulded into the side of the cradle. A common USB A-B patch cable is then used for connecting the cradle to a power supply (the cellphone charger's output USB port is often used) or a computer.

To attach the cradle to its place (a vertical sheet of perforated metal, a chassis of an old computer used as a bed table (don't ask)) a pair of M4 screws was molded into the material; a pair of holes was drilled into the plastic, then the screws were placed in, warmed with a soldering iron, and sunk into the material.

Images

USB adapter	USB connector B, female, detail	USB connector micro B, male, detail	Cradle, rough mould
Cradle, top view	Detail of charging connector	Cradle screws	Detail of a screw