USB Charge Station – 5 Ports

We all have a mess of USB plugs going to various high current fast chargers. Wires everywhere coming out of the wide spaced power boards with multiple chargers plugged in. Pics at the bottom.

I decided to build a 5 port high power USB charger for our tablets and phones. Each USB provides up to 3 Amps so they have plenty of grunt. The 2 middle pins of the USB port D+ and D- are connected to indicate to the device that high power charging is available. Total build time around 2 hours.

Shopping List:

  1. 10 Amp 12V power supply
  2. 5 x USB 5V buck converter 3 Amp OR Apple friendly buck converter
  3. Mini 12V fan(Now removed on mine – too noisy and not needed)
  4. Plastic enclosure 140mm x 110mm x 35mm
  5. Various connectors, glue and bits

Once you have these off the shelf bits it’s pretty easy to cut the holes in the front for the USB slots. I made sure that I glued a piece of wood in place behind the USB boards to prevent them getting pushed back when people plugged in USB cables.

And… it works great. Just wish I’d made space for 8 charging ports. I can still see the nice shiny red LEDs through the USB ports

Leave a Reply