USB Charge Outlet

Smartphones, tablets, iPads have created a basket full of USB chargers. We found this little number through our home automation supplier a couple of months ago. At the time, they only had white available. But now black ones, which will work in our coach, have been released and are due to be shipped in a couple of weeks!

Leviton T5630-E 15-Amp 125-volt 2.1-Amp USB Charger

We ordered a black one for the coach and a white one for the house. There are other brands, but we have had good luck with other Leviton devices. The outlet is engineered with one high-power USB port and one regular so we can charge both phones or 1 phone and 1 tablet at the same time and still have the AC outlet for one of the laptops.

Installing it in the RV was not as simple as it could have been. Although I was replacing an existing outlet, the RV one was a self contained unit which did not require a separate wall box. The RV one also used a IDC (insulation-displacement contact) electrical connection with a snap on back to cover the connection points.

The new unit is intended to be mounted in a normal residential outlet box, and you do not want to forgo using this as its provides the spark arrest should something go wrong in the outlet. Of course the residential setup required more space (depth) and used normal screw connections, not IDC like the RV one had.

To get the wall box to fit where I wanted to mount the unit required me to jog an existing draw slide support. Also cutting the existing wiring, so I could use the screw or press fit connection did not leave me much extra wire so you had to work in a tight area.

This has been one of those simple but oh-so awesome improvements. Its so nice not to have to go hunting for the right charger / wall wart / etc. Now all we need is the USB cable, which we usually just leave plugged into the outlet.