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Electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining serious traction as new car prices come down and charging infrastructure grows. But that infrastructure is still far from comprehensive and most EV owners want the convenience of charging at home. Sadly, all of the off-the-shelf charging solutions are boring to look at. Most people would mistake them for breaker boxes or tankless water heaters. Edson3 wanted something with more visual for their garage, so they built an EV charger into an LED-lit wheel mounted on the wall. Wallbox
Edson3 didn’t create all of the charging components from scratch, because that would have been a massive undertaking with many safety concerns. Instead, they used parts from OpenVolt, which provides open-source hardware. They even sell a bracket for mounting a wheel on a wall, for exactly this kind of project. Their OpenVolt controller is available with an LED output that makes it easy to connect a strip of RGB LEDs that react to the charger’s state.
For this project, Edson3 purchased the OpenVolt EV charging station hardware with the LED output and the OpenVolt wheel mounting bracket. They chose to use a Rotiform LAS-R wheel in black and that isn’t a cheap wheel, but anyone replicating this project can buy whatever wheel suits their tastes — it isn’t like weight or strength matter for this application.
Edson3 gave the LED lighting some polish with a custom mount and diffuser. The LEDs wrap around a 3D-printed hub that attaches behind the wheel and the diffuser helps to give the light a nice even glow, almost like a disc brake rotor overheating on the track.
Edson3 provides step-by-step instructions on how to put this all together and wire everything, but it is similar to any other OpenVolt EV charger build. The results, however, are fantastic and this will get way more attention than a standard charger. Car enthusiasts often scoff at EVs, but this might start bringing them around to the idea.
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