I am a teacher and we are 1-to-1 with chromebooks. I have a few chromebook charger cables around my classroom, but they honestly get kind of stepped on and damaged. There is no real easy way to for me to provide enough of them for kids to charge when they need to. I’ve tried.
get a few cheap, but long, USB charging cables and run them from behind my shelves on the counter out to where kids would sit and charge their chromebook.
I set it all up and while chromebooks can charge that way, the charging unit is too low of watts to provide a great charge. It says “unreliable charge” and I believe it is simply too low a wattage. It would charge, but slowly. And if they are using them simultaneously, it won’t charge because it isn’t strong enough.
My thought was to get two powerstrips and put a bunch of phone charger bricks/blocks in them and run the cables from those. But my bet is that those also too weak to charge decently.
Yes, I have to pay this myself because the school will not provide enough stuff for what I need.
What is the best way to provide adequate and numerous charging ports/cables for my students? I’d like about 8 and I have shelves to hide any power-strips or cables in.
I don’t have a Chromebook, but I do have a couple 8-port 100-watt USB charging stations that I bought on Amazon. They were about $32 each. They both have digital displays that show you the charging rate for each port (scrolling through them sequentially). I put the chargers on a timer outlet and then set a schedule so that the charger turns on for two hours each morning. I use it to keep my portable USB battery banks, spare phones, headphones, cameras, etc., fully charged.
I think one is a Asometech and the other is a Ssouwoa. They’ve both been working for over a year and I have no complaints.
This. I recently bought one for an overseas trip, you can definitely get them with enough wattage to handle your charging needs for the Chromebooks. Mine worked quite well for keeping my devices, and the Mrs. devices, charged, with phones, tablets, earbuds, flashlights, etc. connected all at the same time.
Would it be possible to have charging cables dangling down from the ceiling, like the power cords one finds in some lab rooms? That’d keep them from getting underfoot, at least.
Ultimately, though, you’re going to be limited by the amperage of the mains supply to your room, which I suspect is likely to be inadequate, and is beyond your power to fix.
I don’t have any solution to suggest, but I feel like it’s important to consider electrical safety. I’m a little surprised that you’re allowed to purchase mains electrical equipment for use in a school.
It’s not at all uncommon for cheap unbranded or unknown-brand mains adaptors to be dangerous (in the sense that they can output mains voltage on a metal part of the output that can easily be touched, or that are a fire risk.) I mention this particularly because you linked Temu, which is one of the places you are most likely to encounter that sort of hazardous equipment.
Who is liable if the chargers you choose to buy burn down the school or electrocute a pupil?
You could make it so that things follow a rule, like only charging when you’re not using it, and only a certain amount at a time. You could make it so that certain people are charging at certain times. I’m also thinking you could mitigate damage by using say special connectors that are magnetized and can connect to one of the charger ends, if that’s even possible. You could make it so that if you’re below a certain percentage, it’s recommended or required to charge, which could be helped by if that’s something a lot of students feel they need. I like your shelf idea, where kids can only access the cable portion. Following up on the idea of physical detraction barriers to breaking, you may be able to make it so that they have to use a standing station and it’s magnetic so the cable won’t break off. I wonder how easy this should be to do if you’d want to also be a cool teacher
I’ve used this vertical file organizer to hold laptops for charging. It lets me charge several in a small area, and is much cheaper than those carts that hold a bunch of laptops.
Now the warning. Off brand USB-C power delivery adapters are full of lies. I’ve bought and returned many from Amazon and other places because they advertise 100 watts, but can only do 65, for example, or get hot and shut down. Pretty much all of the cheapest ones are lying, but to make it even worse, spending more is not sufficient to get a good one, but it is necessary.
I would look at why this damage happens and try to prevent it.
That seems better that spending your own money on equipment (which you would have to test was safe as well.)
Won’t that simply happen again with the new equipment?
See, now I’m really confused. Why aren’t your current cables hidden/protected by the existing shelves?
I’m not trying to circumvent the O.P. but I’m trying to understand why you hafta spend your own money (!!!) to replace stuff that either could be protected from damage, or will be damaged again.
I was specifically suggesting the 100-watt 8-port chargers for several reasons:
They may (or may not) have an actual 100-watt capacity, but they definitely have more capacity than a typical charger.
They display the charging rate for each port, so you can easily tell whether it’s reached its capacity and/or which ports have fully charged devices.
These use an AC cable that plugs into a standard wall receptacle. The charger sits on the table or shelf, unlike a wall-wart. You can plug six chargers into a six-position multiple outlet with no problems. Also, the cable is a standard 2-conductor that is easily replaced if damaged…
I use these at home with 36" universal charging cables. (Each cable ends in an Apple, micro USB, and USB-C connector for meximum flexibility.) I have a piece of tape on each cable labelled “Port 1” through “Port 8.” Again, no problems in the last year or two.
