Wall Mounted Charging Station
If you’re anything like me, you own tools from several of the major brands, which of course all require their own batteries and their own chargers. This leads to a ton of frustration for me first, I have to search for a sliver of counter space to put another charger, and afterwards I have to wander around the shop (more commonly known as a garage) muttering to myself in frustration because the only thing harder to find than the batteries after they’re charged are 10mm sockets and the pencil I used 5 minutes ago.
Enter the idea for a wall mounted battery charging station. First let me clarify, this is not a new concept, this has been tackled countless times and is widely posted across the internet, however this is the first iteration for my shop and I wanted to share with you a few things I thought of before, during and after putting this together.
First, I’m not sure about you, but for some reason I do not like to spend a lot of money for shop organization projects. As much as they help my workflow it’s hard for me spend a lot of money towards these projects, I’d rather save it and spend it on more tools! In that spirit, I found some scrap pieces of ply that I had laying around the shop and laid them out to see how I could best use the material available.
Second, check out the video from @Builtby_n8 on Instagram he does a great job at explaining a simple way to align the screw holes of your chargers. Simple advice like this saves the need for tape measures, writing numbers down etc.
Makita battery chargers are the exception to this trick. They are the only major tool brand (that I have encountered yet) which does not include eyeholes on the bottom to allow you to mount the charger to the wall. Luckily for us, the internet has provided yet another trick. YouTube tool reviewer Doresoom has given us a great work around for this.
This is the method that I used to mount my Makita double-bay battery charger to a 1/2” plywood backer, then mounted that to my charger board. I tried to pull the charger back off the board, and yes with my full strength pulling at it, I can make the rubber flex and begin to wiggle, but between the weight of the charger and the action of connecting and disconnecting batteries, this charger is not going anywhere!
Lastly, just tidy up the power cords, plug everything into a surge protector and you’re ready to go! Now you can keep all your charging needs, and batteries in one place. No more cursing and searching around the shop each time you need a different tool.
