Daisy Chaining Electrical sockets

monthehoops

Hi,

I'm looking into charging hundreds of mobile phones at once. What is the best way to go about this? If I daisy chain a load of electrical sockets together will I be able to get the same power out of socket 100 as I might get out of socket 1?

Is there a preferred method for connecting sockets in this way, or to build a panel from scratch?

DublinDilbert

If each phone takes 200mA @ 5V = 1W. So 100 phones would be 100W, allowing for losses in the charger lets say its 150W. This is still less than 0.5Amps @ 220V.

If you want to just plug in 100's of chargers you'd be best getting some monster plug boards, eg 10 ways each, rather than plug in individual sockets. If you use 100's of sockets the wiring/mounting of these is just going to be a real pain, never mind the actual size.

If your looking to charge 100's of mobile phones you'd be best off building a suitable charger, rather than plug in 100 individual chargers. The cheapest way to charge a large number of phones would be to use an old PC power supply. You would need to add suitable protection to the outputs, but the 5V output from one of these power supplies can give around 30A, so could charge at least 60 phones at 0.5A each.

monthehoops

Thanks DD.

I think it's a bit of a mix. It's basically charging mobile phones at an event, meaning there'd be lots of different chargers and lots of different phones.

If going down the plug board route, would I be better off with one socket, then plug a 10 gang extension lead into that and then plug 10 * 10 gang leads into that.....or do I daisy chain them i.e. plug one into the next and into the next? Or does it matter?

DublinDilbert

monthehoops wrote: »

Thanks DD.

I think it's a bit of a mix. It's basically charging mobile phones at an event, meaning there'd be lots of different chargers and lots of different phones.

If going down the plug board route, would I be better off with one socket, then plug a 10 gang extension lead into that and then plug 10 * 10 gang leads into that.....or do I daisy chain them i.e. plug one into the next and into the next? Or does it matter?

Doesn't really matter how you connect the plug boards, the total current will be less than 1A for the whole lot. Remember a single plug can supply 13 times this current. The easiest way would be to use say one 10way plug board and plug 10 into this one. Then each of these 10 could have another 10 way plugged into it.

You'll probably find there's an optimal size plugboard from a cost / efficiency point of view, probably around 5 or 6 way.

If your running the chargers off a generator make sure you've a decent generator and some surge protection.


I'd be very surprised if someone doesn't do a unit with loads of USB connections on it for charging phones, then you just have a selection of the correct cables:-
http://www.mobilesolarchargers.co.uk/shop/details/multiple-usb-mains-charger

This would eliminate 10 small phone chargers and plug bars etc...

monthehoops

That's excellent DD thanks a mill.