Just wondering what ideas for good V5 charging Station designs that could be easily transported to competition.
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We made this case last year, it has a poly carbonate divider with a power strip holding chargers for robot and controller batteries. We added cut outs in the shape of the battery to organize the chargers when in use. The picture is it just before we loaded it up for worlds.
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A team at my school made one that could hold 6 or 8 batteries I think and we just put it next to a power strip to charge them all at once. The entire thing was made entirely of vex parts and was pretty compact. I don’t have a pic or remember exactly how it was built, but they measured it out to where the batteries could easily slide in with the charging end up. Edit: and also measured it to fit enough batteries so each team at my school could have at least one charging.
Pretty much it was rectangular with a slot on top to slide in batteries, a back, a bar in front to hold the batteries in place, and a bottom. I do remember a bar was used in the front so we could see which team numbers were on each battery. I guess polycarbonate could also be used.
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In general you just want to avoid to pack and unpack the cables every time you do the setup.
We use a generic office organizer box ~9"x12" where power strip with several V5 battery and generic USB chargers always plugged in and everything including excess cables is neatly tucked in and attached by velcro.
Similar to the setup that @invalidflaw shared above all you have to do when you come to competition is open the box and plug the main cord into outlet. We don’t have the look as nice, with both controllers having individual storage spot, as @invalidflaw has, but it takes minimal space and those office organizer boxes are easily stackable.
If you want to see more specialized charger solutions here are several prior threads:
In general you don’t have to have a dedicated charging station if you have just a few batteries. Instead, you can integrate it with other tools that you frequently use and would like to have easily accessible in your pit during the competitions:
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We have a couple of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076KT7XR7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Holds V5 chargers (which are “sideways” for a typical power strip) and has USB chargers too.
If you come to a Team 3547: Virus-hosted event, you’ll be able to use our big charging station, usually one shelf is available to each team:
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We have like 5 of these at my school