Nowadays, devices use USB ports as their main source of external power. To charge a phone, external battery or wireless headset, you would often find yourself fiddling with a charging cable with a USB port on one end. With that said, USB ports are not readily available should you not have a computer with you. In addition, if the device does not come with a wall adapter, you can practically kiss that device goodbye when its battery runs out. Here is a cheap alternative and tip for you people that have such a worry.
USB hubs come in two different flavours: powered and non-powered. The reason why you need a powered USB hub is because you want to connect several power eating devices (e.g external HDDs, printers etc) to the hub. In order for it to work, you will need to provide an external source of power, letting the USB link do just the data transmission work.
In our case, a powered USB hub will serve as a charging station. Simply get a USB hub that supports a power adapter (find the hole that allows for an adapter to be plugged in). A quick search in eBay will give you several cheap choices to choose from. If you have a USB hub that has a power input but do not have an adapter, simply measure the diameter of the power input port and count the number of USB ports. To get the right adapter for the USB hub, simply search for “5v [no. of ports x 0.5]A adapter†in eBay. Look for the size that comes closest to what you measured (most are standard sizes).
Once you have everything ready, simply plug the adapter into your power source and the adapter into your hub. There you go, a USB charging station. You can use it for various different purposes. For example, you can simply bring that along with you and you have a mobile USB wall plug (on the cheap). You too can use it in your DIY charging station project, allowing you to totally skip all that difficult and complicated soldering of circuit boards and power circuits etc. Mount it at the side of your bed frame and you have a bed that has a charging port!
Some things are so simple that they are often overlooked by everyone. Hope this helps
TLDR: Get a powered USB hub and you have a USB charging station.
