I have a 2024 Clubman, and my wife has a 2019 Cooper S (F55). The wireless chargers in both of our cars are completely useless. We both have iPhone 14 Pros and the camera bump and apple cases make the gap too large for the charger to work reliably. So I removed mine to make a spot for my sunglasses to live. Here's what I did:

I leared a lot about taking the armrest out and also how the charger portion of the armrest comes apart from this video:


Thanks a bunch to Hans Saathof and I hope he gets more than 13 subscribers because although the camerawork was a bit wobbly, I got images of exactly what I needed to see to understand the plastic catches inside the clamshell and to take my armrest apart without any damage.

One you get the armrest apart and the charger layer on the bench, you have to split it to remove the wires from the charger to the armrest joint. When you remove the charger (which is impressively large for what it is doing), you have a nice cavity perfect for a few items like sunglasses etc. But the cavity has holes and cutouts and is not finished particularly nicely. So it really needs a little tray to snap into place where the charger was.

I'm no stranger to designing that sort of thing and I whipped out my copy of solidworks and sketched up a quick tray that matches the footprint of the charger with cutouts on the side for the retaining clips and a 3.6deg draft angle on the sides like the charger has. I printed it on my gimpy home FDM printer to test it out and make sure the fit is good. I will probably have this part 3D printed at protolabs in PA12 or similar. But for now, I applied a little piece of adhesive backed felt to the insert (like you line machinist's tool boxes with) and I'm going to live with it for a while. Here's a few pictures of it. I'm glad to share my tray design with anybody who wants it. I can give you the solidworks file, or a STL or step file that you can 3d print yourself or have done at a print house (I can help you get it printed at somewhere like protolabs if you'd like). If there was a HUGE amount of interest in this tray idea, I could get it injection molded but I'd need to sell them for a lot of money or sell a lot of them to recoup the cost of the mold.

Sheldon



3D printed wireless charger replacement tray insert, hot off the printer with no cleanup

Another view of my replacement tray

Tray with adhesive felt applied

Tray installed in my Clubman

Glasses sitting on a microfiber cloth, perfect.

 

Very nice!

 

Hi! I've been looking for something that's exactly this. Would you mind sharing the STL or step file so I can get this printed?

 

Sure thing, here is the step file.


Sheldon