Introduction: Lego Arcade Machine Phone Charging Station

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About: I am a frustrated builder of things, not quite skilled enough to do great jobs (in my mind anyway) but just enough imagination to want to try... these are my creations for better or for worse I hope that peopl…

With no thought as to how I was going to show this creation (I made this in August last year before I thought I would setup an Instructables account) I did not take any pictures of the 3 day build of this epic arcade machine charging station.

Currently its the housing for my previous mobile phone (a Samsung Galaxy S3), which is also my media player as it sits near the bluetooth speak system, but is big enough to fit my Samsung Galaxy S5 as well (although it gets a bit snug with the protective case on it)

I hope you like it. I have included many pictures to give an understanding of how it was put together and how it is used.

Let me know what you think

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EDIT:

So people let me know what they thought in the comments and overriding thought was, "where's the steps to build it" so I have taken the finished item apart (to a degree) and taken photos of the sections in the order they go together. I hope this helps anyone wanting to recreate this as I was worried I would make a mess of it but it came apart (and for that matter went back together) pretty easily so all in all I am pretty pleased with the amount of information I have gathered to assist people.

Once again let me know what you think of the additional photos and steps in the comments.

Step 1: The Base

The 5 images above show the base from each side, the back and the top. As you can see its hollow to allow the cable to come through the small gap in the back and up to the point where the phone will stand.

The last 2 images show the top of the base with the hinges for the backplate for the phone to lean against and when it is place the gap it makes for the charging cable and also a little dip for the phone to sit in.

Step 2: The Backplate for the Phone to Lean Against

The images above show:

1 - The structure to which the top of the backplate will be fixed

2 - The backplate with its smooth flat elements to let the phone slide in without catching or scratching it

3 - The structure in place on the base

4 - The backplate in place with the hinges so that it is angled

5 - The view of the backplate from the front

Step 3: The Top Half of the Arcade Case

The four images above give you the all angle views of the top half of the arcade case that is where the phone is stored to make it look like the screen of the arcade machine.

As you can see it is only 1 dot wide all the way round

Step 4: The Top Added to the Base

Not much to say here, once you have your top half finished just slide it onto the base around the backplate and stand part.

Step 5: Add the Hinged Roof

The images above show the final part, the hinged roof. The images show:

1 - The roof flat part

2 - The position of the hinges

3 - The roof attached and fully open

4 - Shutting the roof down

5 - The roof fully in place

Step 6: Now the Phone Charging Begins

The above pictures show that:

1 - I have it that I need to pull the cable out to attach it to the phone

2 - Once attached I then slowly pull the cable from the back and slide the phone down the backplate

3 - Once its full in the phone sits in the little dip and the cable is out of view

Step 7: The Finished Article in All Its Glory

Again no build steps just it complete from many different angles.

The lid hinges up to allow the phone to slide in once plugged into the USB charging cable held by President Business.

The space invaders on the bottom of the machine started out as attempts to be the Android robot but ended up more like space invaders... so thats what I intended them to be... once I realised what they looked like.

To assist here are some dimensions:

The base is made of 2 dot wide parts, the top part is (as can be seen) only 1 dot wide parts.

The height of the base is 11 bricks high

The height of the top part is 13 bricks high which is as tall as the phone when it is in place along with another 2 bricks high for the sloped hinged lid

The width of the whole thing is 12 dots wide.

The width of the space for the phone is 10 dots wide. This gives enough room for up to an S5 without any additional protective cases

The depth of the base is 12 dots

The depth of the top part is 11 dots

The hinged lid is 14 dots long and 10 dots wide

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EDIT:

As you can see the above saying there are no build steps was before I was prompted to take the finished item apart and document putting it back together. Hopefully the updated version of this instructable will help someone recreate or make their own version of this.

Step 8: In Conclusion

After many hours sifting through the big box of Lego I have for the bits to build this it came out better than I imagined. I had no real plan for it other than being an arcade machine. The designs - Pacman, The Ghosts, the Space Invaders etc - were added in as I went along. The red columns on front and back came out of necessity of running low on blue parts.

If you want to do something similar it really is a worthwhile project as it not only looks cool, but also shows off your phone as well.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the brief description