Make An Outlet-Mounted Charge Station From A Shampoo Bottle
Giving your cell phone or iPod a semi-permanent, clever-looking home on your wall doesn’t have to cost more than a couple of bucks. A used shampoo bottle and some basic tools are all that’s needed for MAKE’s outlet-mounted “charging pocket.”
If this specimen looks familiar, that’s because it is—we previously pointed to a similar charge station for single gadgets, but that tutorial’s been taken down by the author “due to safety issues.” That might raise a few eyebrows, but DIY haven MAKE tends to see this project as fairly safe, at least for phone chargers with built-in transformers. Your mileage will vary, though, with how firmly your sockets hold a plug, and you shouldn’t hang anything too heavy in the charger that might pull a plug loose. That said, commenters have suggested using a faceplate screw to better secure the pocket holder and reduce the tension on the plug.
The design’s a bit different than our previous example, as the case hangs from holes drilled for the charger’s prongs instead of loosely hanging on top of them. As for cost and convenience, you can pick out any cheap shampoo with a nice look to its plastic bottle, or, if you’re already set up with one, pull out the razor and drill and get to work. The tutorial includes a handy printable drill guide for making neat prong holes.
Outlet-mount device charging pocket [Make: Online]
- Next Post: ReQall iPhone App Gets Push Notifications »
- « Previous Post: New Folder Wizard Makes Bulk Folder Creation Effortless
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@koalasthewise: Before advocating stupid shit like this, have you done the math? It is self-satisfied wankers pushing blatantly stupid stuff like this that totally turns me off the whole friggin' green movement. Unplug your cell phone wall wart and you will save $0.58 per year. Wow.
AmphetamineCrown
@shwnchr: I thought they started to raise them for the guys in wheelchairs (i'm sure they started to lower the light swithces as well) although that might be just public buildings.
madjack1987
Chargers use energy when they're plugged in but not being used. Don't be wasteful; unplug it and save the planet and some cash.
Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement. :P
its quite ugly, but I did it with an axe body wash bottle and is good if i don't want my cell sitting on my counter. We'll see what the wife thinks tho
Based on that photo, it looks like the plug is being used to support the weight of the device. That's probably why this isn't safe as the combined weight of bottle and device may slowly pull the plug out of the socket making a fire hazard. Plus the plug is never "fully" inserted.
My quick solution would be to cut the back slightly higher and use the screw to hold the bottle. Just cut away enough so the circuit breaker can trip if needed. This also has the advantage of being able to swap out the item being charged easily without a balancing act of keeping the plastic in place.
For an even MORE perm solution would be to remove the faceplate and mount the bottle behind it. Just cut a big hole so it doesn't obstruct anything and it sorta hangs off the wall plug, but once the faceplate is returned, most all the weight will be distributed to the pressure of the faceplate pressing it against the wall. Now any size wall-wart will fit and be easily changed out. No chance of a kid or pet bumping the whole contraption partially or completely out of the wall leaving your electronics on the ground.
@AmphetamineCrown: Beat me to it. I am really becoming annoyed and disgusted with the green alarmist in this country. There is is waste everywhere, but attack the meaningful waste instead of trying to be a hipster greenie and bash and actually novel and innovative idea with OBVIOUS fixes for the waste.
@mwschmeer: This post describes how to fashion a cheap, homemade cradle for holding your device while it is charging. One might just as easily make a habit of unplugging the power block from the wall and letting it rest inside the cradle whenever the device unplugged from the cord and carried off for the day. Yes, no?
@mgpcoe: Having moved around a lot in my life, I feel like I've seen/used just about all there is to see/use when it comes to electric outlet configurations. I always surmised that, over time, outlets were gradually raised higher so as to lessen their susceptibility to rising water.
There's got to be an electrician out there somewhere who can confirm or discredit this.
@strabes: i see what you did there!
@allc0re:
Clever..sure.
But the fact that it looks like a cut up shampoo bottle makes it "mufugly".
gnoswal
@strabes: I use an old spice bottle. Its a bit thicker.
@mikerm19: None of them had any draw measurable on a kill-a-watt. They draw about 5mA, below the radar for that device.
AmphetamineCrown
I use one of these on the side of my desk to hold my cell phone and a few remotes(tv, stereo). I just attach it to my desk with a few thumbtacks. Works great.
@mwschmeer: A wall wart draws about 5mA@115VAC when not actually charging something, so about 0.6W. That comes to 14.4 Watt-Hours per day, or 5.25 kWH per year. At an average retail of $0.11/kWH, that comes to about $0.58 per year.
Yes, yes, multiplied by six bazillion it might make a difference, blah blah. Turning a 150W lightbulb off six minutes earlier each day makes a larger difference.
AmphetamineCrown
I am going to skip this one. My charging station when I build it will include a powered USB hub. (Or I might build one myself) Our house has 6 or 7 devices that charge by USB spec power supplies. The one phone I have that doesn't will be replaced as soon as it's contract is up.
englishman
@gover57: I just make sure everything I buy can be charged via USB and charge it all through my laptop & 7-port USB hub. That way they don't use any extra power when not charging because my USB hub isn't always plugged into my laptop.
This homemade solution is Head and Shoulders above the commercially-available one.
@mwschmeer: or a box with all your chargeables and a power bar - flick the bar off when not in use...
gover57
@mwschmeer: This is what I was thinking. Keeping your chargers plugged in when not charging anything is just wasteful. And ugly.
Actually as far as phantom power goes. I put a kill-a-watt on all of my chargers, and none of them had any draw when they weren't in use. Not to say none do, but you may want to test yours first before believing it will.
mikerm19
WOOSH
Jeffsmashkot
Okay, it's clever; but the wall wart is still sucking a trickle of energy even if it's not plugged into the device, isn't it? How hard is it to plug and unplug a non-essential device, people?
My wife is looking for a solution like this... forwarding post now... thanks!
Micho
Whoa, this is one of those "How come I didn't think of this before" projects. I like this and it is very handy, useful and cheap to make lol. Cheap is good for something else again.
I honestly wonder what was the last thing the person who came up with this one ate before it got that "aaaahhhhh!!!uno" moment. hmmmm....
ArJay
@radleyas: I think it depends more on the age of your building. I grew up in a house built in Canada in the 1970s and all the plugs were about a foot and a bit from the ground. Now I'm in an apartment built in the late 20s and they're all attached to the baseboard, except for the one in the kitchen, and the one in the bathroom (which is even worse.. part of the light fixture!)
mgpcoe
@orlo:
I find myself wondering if you're in the UK. In the US, we tend to have them at shin or knee height, as mrs_helm said. When I lived in London, I had the baseboard level outlets you speak of.
radleyas
@orlo: I think baseboard- level sockets must be a regional thing? Ours are knee-level in every home or business I've ever been in. That seems to be the default around Eastern US. However, I've occasionally seen them at chair-rail level, which is nice when you want to plug in items from a desk or tabletop without having cords run all over.
Since most sockets are at the baseboard-level, it's not really convenient to mess around with them
orlo
@madjack1987: Actually, it's clever. Just because it doesn't look like a new Apple product doesn't make it "mufugly".
allc0re
Im sorry but theres nothing "suave" about this at all!! its mufugly
madjack1987
Great post!
Think you meant cousin though (link in last paragraph).
Daniel Scott Steinberg
craig198