dedicated charging station for phones, wifi, tablets

[riven1950]

We just returned from a 3 1/2 week trip. I am tired of charge cords all over our little TT.

I am installing an additional 110 outlet in the corner of our " bedroom " area, out of the way of normal traffic. Plan to use some sort of power strip to handle multiple chargers ( camera battery, Wifi HS, phones, tablets ).

I am thinking power overload is not an issue with these multiple devices, would that be true?

Has anyone done this and if so do you have pics of what it looks like?

Thanks

[GASMAN6674]

We use a USB hub that I keep under the entertainment system. It has 6 USB ports that we can plug and charge anything that uses a usb style cord. USB to Mini, USB to Micro, USB to Ipod etc. Works well for us

[Ramblin_Recks]

I installed a power strip in the back of the cabinet and made a drawer to place all our gadgets while charging. Close the drawer and close the glass and out of the way.


Mods to my 36CKTS

[riven1950]

Thanks for all the input. Now I have something to think about and plan towards on this rainy day.

[rvten]

Check out Belkin. They have a 6 outlet plug in which also has 2 USB charging conn.

[RoyB]

I think you have the perfect sized trailer especially if you want to do some camping off the power grid.

With this in mind I would think along the lines of providing your charging station 120VAc multi-tap receptacle with power coming from a small inverter. Probably a 300W to 400W PSW Inverter would fit the bill and this would give emergency 120VAC power for your charger position as well as a few other 120VAC items you might want to run when off the power grid.

Having your home entertainment center on the emergency power grid would be another item you might want to have. We pick up 6-36 FULL BLOWN HDTV digital TV NATIONAL BROADCAST signals from the local towns just about anywhere we go here on the East side of the US using our BATWING OTA Antenna setup.

Of course camping off the power grid requires a few more items to support it successfully being making sure your have a smart mode converter/charger unit, at least two batteries with larger battery cables, LED lights through out the trailer, and the 400WATT Pure Sine Wave inverter (Mine is a 600WATT PSW AIMES model).

The game plan would be to have all the 120VAC and 12VDC items you may want to run when camping off the power grid and having a large enough capacity battery setup. Then be able to re-charge your batteries the next morning during breakfast (three hour run) by connecting your shore power cable to a 2KW Generator. Using smart mode charging this will re-charge your two batteries back up to their 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run time. This short run time fits into most camp ground generator run time restrictions.

I drew this up for another camper showing where to install a small PSW Inverter in a "typical" small trailer. This would fit your trailer scheme just fine... The INVERTER needs to be as close to the Battery Bank as possible and still be inside your trailer. The two 120VAC HD Extension cords that plug into the INVERTER can be as long as you need to provide 120VAC power to the Bedroom and Home entertainment areas.



All you would see would be the multi-tap end of the HD extension cords at the Bedroom and Home entertainment areas. The rest would be behind the cabinets, maybe running down the A/C ducts in the ceiling, etc and come out on the back side or table top for you to plug yur items into it.

We leave out 120VAC items we want to run when off the power grid always connected to our 600WATT Inverter even when at electric camp grounds. This is a great PLAN B for power outages at the electric camp grounds.

Just food for thought...
Roy Ken

[SteveAE]

Riven,

I got tired of the cords and cell phones taking up valuable counter space as well. So as part of my revised cellular plan in our trailer, I mounted two cell phone cradles on the side of a cabinet (right next to an indoor candy stick cellular antenna). Then I used a 4 port car charger and a coiled USB to micro-USB cable to charge the phones as needed. I just leave the cable hanging from the cradles when not needed, but it could easily be unplugged and removed if one wanted it to "look" nicer. The sticky tape on the back of the charger I linked above didn't hold well enough, so I used sticky backed Velcro tape instead with, so far, great results.

Hope this helps,
Steve

[naturist]

riven1950 wrote:


I am thinking power overload is not an issue with these multiple devices, would that be true?

Maybe. Depends on the total draw. Always does. While no one of them is going to pull as much current as, say, your AC, if you plug enough of them in, they can add up to that.

To find out, start adding. Every one of them says right on the wall-wart how many watts or amps they draw when charging. Bearing in mind that watts = amps times volts, and that a typical 15 amp, 120 volt circuit translates to 15 x 120 = 1800 watts, you can put a laptop (85 watts), 4 cell phones (18 watts each, 72 watts total), a tablet (45 watts), . . . that's 202 watts so far . . . all on the same circuit, no problem.

But it is possible to go to far. Add 'em up, see what ya got.

[ScottG]

It won't be a problem - none of those devices uses much current.