When designing furniture, material choice has a huge effect on the character and style of the finished product. Wood is a classic option, while more modern designs may use metal, plastic or even cardboard. Less popular, but no less worthy, is concrete. It’s heavy, cheap, and you can easily cast it into a wide variety of forms. [KagedCreations] thought this would be ideal, and whipped up this nifty piece of furniture with an integrated USB hub.
A pair of melamine shelves were scrapped to build the form, in which the concrete table is cast. Melamine is a popular choice, as it’s cheap, readily available, and releases easily from the finished concrete. Along with the USB hub, a wooden board is cast into the base of the concrete table top. This serves as an easy attachment point for the pre-made hairpin-style legs, which can be installed with wood screws.
The final result is a tidy side table that has plenty of heft to keep it stable and secure. It’s not the first concrete USB hub we’ve seen, but it’s likely the heaviest thus far. We’d love to see a version with an integrated charging pad, too – if you build one, be sure to let us know. Video after the break.
Ok, I’ve got to ask. This is the third “concrete usb hub” article inside of a week, all by Lewin Day.
What’s the play?
An Apple, a Day, lead to charging forays.
Just solid and concrete news. Or some kind of reinforced rolling joke.
That maybe he likes concrete forniture?
Waiting for cement shoes with USB article…
One could almost say Lewin is aggregating concrete build articles… (duck’n’run)
Astute Hackaday readers (and editors) will notice that Lewin put up three vacuum-pump and degassing related articles a week ago. And now it’s casting concrete.
If we don’t see some vibration table designs in the near future, I’ll be surprised.
(Lewin, if you’re out there, an impact driver or random orbital sander or some other super-vibrating tool held up against the mold works great!)
He’s definitely got something going on…
I blame Linus Tech Tips getting us all thinking about doing weird things with concrete since his April Fools Day act of cooling a computer with liquid concrete. :-) at least it isn’t concrete toothbrushes, toilet-paper, matresses, shoe-inserts, trousers, or condoms. :-)
I’m very underwhelmed bu how little “hack” and effort have been put into this table, especially when compared to some other projects I’ve seen here.
I caught a domestic flight at Newark airport. All of their USB outlets at the charging station are broken due to mechanical damages. So putting hubs in a cement slap making them none repairable isn’t that smart.
drill it out with a masonry bit and patch it with some quikrete. In 5 minutes you’ll have a perfectly normal non-USB table.
curious about the long-term effects of embedding wood inside of concrete for attachments. i’ve always heard of steel or fiberglass being used for the non-concrete parts.
Fence posts seem fine for many years.
If someone hotglues a USB hub under a wooden table, would that be a hack, too?
It’s not a hack unless a blinking light is involved.
What if the USB hub already had a blinky light? Would that count?