My day started with Jasmina’s voice. Normally that makes me smile. With my face still in the pillow, and blanket over my head, I was trying to ignore the words:

“Zvonimir, I broke my phone charger!”

Three minutes later, I was on my laptop searching “Sony Xperia Z charging port replacement”. Relatively easy fix, requiring a bit of soldering. With all my tools left in Zagreb, next search was “Ottawa mobile phone repair”. Few phone calls later, we were pressing PRESTO cards in the bus, getting lost on the way to down-town Ottawa.

First shop was willing to fix it for $100, second told it should be about $50 but they need to see the phone first. Upon seeing the phone, they gave up since they don’t want to solder things, but told us we can order magnetic charger for $40 online.

Few hours later, back at my laptop, searching for “wireless charging Sony Xperia Z”.

One type of chargers has a dock with two pins in it. You place the phone in the dock, magnets lock the phone in place, pins touch the pads on the phone, and it starts charging.
The other type has a USB cable on one side and pins and a magnet on the other side.

So it’s really simple, getting voltage (5V) on the phone’s charging pads. Let’s finish this tutorial style:

1. Cut the USB cable.
2. Skin 5mm of red and black wires.
3. Twist the exposed end of each wire.
4. Plug in the USB cable into charger.
5. Place red wire on the top pad.
6. Place black wire on the bottom pad.
7. Enjoy 🙂

Notice that the orange charge indication LED on the top-right of the phone is on 🙂

Do you have some no-budget or low-budget hacks of your own?