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."

Insomnia

I organize mine alphabetically by manufacturer. It gives me something to do on the nights that I can't sleep.

But no matter how sleep-deprived I am, I would never submit such drivel to slashdot, nor, were I an editor, would I post it.

Serious issue!

It does raise a serious issue of why the flying fuck in the sky don't gadgets simply have the same bloody connectors for charging? There's no excuse! If all manufacturers could agree on the USB standard then why can't they make a charger standard?

Re:Serious issue!

It does raise a serious issue of why the flying fuck in the sky don't gadgets simply have the same bloody connectors for charging? There's no excuse!

Your question takes two steps to solve. First, hold shift. Second, press 4.

Re:Serious issue!

First, hold shift. Second, press 4.

I have a French keyboard, you insensitive clod!

Re:Serious issue!

For one thing, different gadgets require different voltages. If you hook up the wrong voltage, you can fry the gadget. Different size plugs helps to avoid this. Also, different devices require different amperage. There is no reason to make a rectifier that can handle higher amperage that it really needs, since that adds cost.

Re:Serious issue!

Boost/Buck converters negate those factors.

E.g. phones which can charge over USB dont use 5v batteries.

Re:Serious issue!

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.

Re:Serious issue!

China has already mandated USB charging for all new mobile phones [slashgear.com]

Re:Serious issue!

Holy ancient links Batman! If China mandated USB charging for all phones in 2006, are all phones in compliance today?

Re:Insomnia

I agree as well, lame stories such as this shouldn't ever be posted to the front page of Slashdot! On the other hand, whining about which stories and questions are posted, and 'me too' replies to them, keep me fascinated, please tell us more of your expert editing opinions. If at all possible, please continue to do so without any humor, off hand insight, or any other redeemable content, as we all are better knowing that you too, have felt like your time is wasted.

organize them according to their risk level

Risk of Exploding
1- nokia
2- dell
3- sony
4...

Re:organize them according to their risk level

I don't get it. Any vertical list of positive integers on /. should include ??? and Profit! What gives?

USB

Pack them all away and get USB charging cables for them all. Much easier and takes up much less space.

Re:USB

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 :)

Wherever possible, use usb chargers.

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 ).

Re:Wherever possible, use usb chargers.

Genius! I can charge my thinkpad from my thinkpad's USB port! Could this be the solution to the world's energy problems?

Randomly

I store all my chargers in a drawer. Each time I need one I sort throught them, untangle the wires and curse about it.

Disassemble them all!

Cut off the plugs from all of the cables and solder all of the wires to the output of one transformer, thus enabling you to simultaneously charge all of your devices and cook your dinner on the monstrosity you now have plugged into the wall.

You may wish to update your fire insurance.

Callpod

http://callpod.com/ [callpod.com] I think they're a bit pricey, but definitely worth it if you've got a ton of gadgets. Two cellphones qualifies... :)

Three Mobile Phones?

I neglected to ask this in my previous post: why the f-ck have you got three mobile phones?

Green Plug is already trying to do this

http://www.greenplug.us/ [greenplug.us] Green Plug has been mentioned before on /. and has been adopted by Westinghouse (http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/15/0136223) If it is adopted widely, the problem of multiple chargers will largely disappear.

Re:News for nerds?

Some of use nerds have "wives", and desks messed up with mountains of chargers has a low WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor)... Anything with a low WAF will lower the chances of wife-provided entertainment, a.k.a. sex.

It matters, my friend. It truly matters. ;)

Re:News for nerds?

Ah, a newlywed I see.

chance_of_sex = 1 / (year_of_marriage + number of children - WAF/1000)

As you can see, prior to marriage, a high WAF can actually be detrimental (she'll think you are gay). But after a few years of marriage and/or children the WAF becomes all but meaningless.

Re:News for nerds?

And some wives have their own "gadgets" that require chargers.

Re:Three step process...

I said keep the laptop, did I not? Reading for comprehension: FAIL

Besides, I ALWAYS have my iPhone with me. And it can, to some extent, and in most cases to the extent necessary, stand in for all of those other things.

You on the other hand, may or may not, depending on whether or not you loaded up your Batman utility belt that morning, be carrying the LG, the Nokia, the Ericcson, the Canon, the Cowan, or the Nintendo. Nor, given the subject of the post, will you be totally certain that any or all of them are charged up and ready to go. (BTW, you forgot to mention the book reader/Kindle, GPS/Magellen, ...., ah, never mind.)

From my perspective, having the perfect dedicated device for each and every function does me no good whatsoever when it's sitting on the shelf at home because I didn't feel like being an electronic pack mule that day.