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What To Do With All of My Gadget Chargers?
legoman666 writes "On my desk I have chargers for the following gadgets: Nokia N810, LG Chocolate, Sony Ericcson Z310a, Canon Powershot SD1000, Cowan iAudio X5L, Lenovo Thinkpad, Logitech MX1000 and my Nintendo DS. Not a single pair of them share a similar connector. I have two power strips whose singular purpose is to energize these chargers. My question to Slashdot is: How do you organize all of your different chargers? Please, share your secrets."
Yes the charge rate is slower, but you need far fewer plugs - I've managed to get usb chargers for all my gadgets ( ds included ) and net result is I only need to manage one plug for the server. ( the number of usb cables is a different question, but they are much easier to manage ).
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
I neglected to ask this in my previous post: why the f-ck have you got three mobile phones?
ilovegeorgebush
China has already mandated USB charging for all new mobile phones
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
And will make your USB power fall over and die and blow something up, very creative and "performance art".
Better:
500W PSU
a pair of side cutters
soldering iron
a terminal block
tons of heat-shrink
Select and solder some heatsinked resistors over the 12v and 5v rails so that you are sinking an amp in each (switchmode PSUs need a constant load).
Next tap wires for different chargers, 12v and 5v are easy (as almost all are now) 3.3 and 12v will give you around 9v, 5v and 12v will give you 7.
Then all you need is a nice little cabinet with some ventilation and one power lead and you can dump all your junk in there to charge and GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE AND LEAVE THEM BEHIND!
A phone, an mp3 player and a camera should do anyone, heck some phones can be your mp3 and camera too now.
And if you can't follow even a bit of what I said, don't try it :)
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If you can get hold of a Blackberry Travel Charger, it serves as a very handy charging plug for all your USB powered devices. Except Sony Ericssons, which, for some reason, will ONLY charge from USB if the USB cable is connected to an actual computer.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Yes, AT THE MOMENT.
There's no reason why gadgets can't be designed around a particular voltage - look at all the stuff you can buy which plugs into car cigarette lighters.
Being forced to use 12V doesn't seem to slow anybody down.
No sig today...
I know a lobbyist who works for a company that makes connectors. He actively lobbies in Brussels against any standard. That's his daywork, he get's paid to do so. His company has thousands of different connectors in production, and standards would make there business les profitable.
One would assume that the manufacturer's motivations remain where they "should" be, to insure profit. If you lose or break a charger, or if it just plain fails, you can either order another one from the manufacturer for some unreasonable amount, or you can buy a whole new unit. I've had to buy a whole new unit on several occasions.
When a charger I own breaks or get lost I stroll to the nearest hotel and asks if they got one of the model I need. The hotels are very happy to get rid of them since they usually have bins full of chargers that people have left in their rooms and never claimed.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
The nice thing about USB is that it is first and foremost a communication protocol. It would be very nice if when you plugged your device in, it got it's standard 500mA, and then requested from the charger the amount of power it actually needed to charge the quickest. The chargers could actually become smart, and do things like shut off power to ports when not in use, or turn the power way down when the device is charged.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?