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I am looking for a cost effective option to install a 120v outlet or at a minimum, a USB charging hub in a kitchen drawer.

I have about 1.75” clearance behind the drawer. There are devices on the market such as the

Docking Drawer | Blade Duo In-Drawer Charging Outlet

Besides being kind of overpriced, they require a 2” minimum behind the drawer clearance.

My drawer is only 12” deep (albeit very wide and deep). I can install an outlet right behind it facing the other side (it’s an island), and thinking I could wire a low voltage USB hub from there, mounted to the back of the cabinets.

I’d be happy with a safe way to route a single 120v connector to a normal charging hub, with high amperage USB ports.

What other options do I have?

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    You can modify your drawer, I.E. move the back in so you have more than 1.75" .
    – Alaska Man
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 18:35
  • @AlaskaMan - I could but I just cannot justify paying $370 for a simple charger. I was hoping, since drawer is not very deep (sp the cord movement will be very limited), I could simply route an extension cord in some relatively safe fashion, or failing that, a low power cable from outlet, feeding a usb charging hub.
    – David
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 18:42
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    @Harper-ReinstateMonica It actually looks like this particular product is (a) designed in the US and sold by a US company, (b) ETL listed, (c) actually looks reasonable (to me) safety-wise - in particular, the AC + USB units have a built-in 3A circuit breaker and their info. shows very clearly "don't use it with a hair dryer" (but of course also coffee maker, etc.) They have similar units without USB that are full 20A (with the right style sockets even). The catch is that this stuff ain't cheap. My best guess is that proper design, the ETL certification and
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 19:47
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    initial tooling/production costs (lots of costs, low volume to spread them across, as this is very much a niche product) explains the $200 - $400 price tag (depending on model). From the basic descriptions, this is the kind of thing that low-quality imports would do for $50 or less (since the basic components are not terribly expensive, particularly if you just slap it together with no certification and cheap-out everywhere you can) and that if a big company (e.g., Leviton) were to get into it - with shared engineering costs & certification easier (since they get many products certified every
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 19:49
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    and can piggyback a lot on older products using same components, etc.) that this would likely be a $ 100 product. But as a niche and quality and certified - boom! $300! Yikes! End result: If you know what you're doing, build it yourself for a fraction. And if you're putting together a high-end kitchen then buy it - it is a drop in the bucket compared to granite counters, Sub-Zero/Viking appliances, etc.
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 19:50

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You don't do it with 120V unless you have AHJ approval for your installation. I can't imagine that happening; there's some argument to be made in NEC 400.7 for flexible cords for equipment which moves, and maybe they'd approve it with armored cable or something... but instead I think the AHJ is going to take one look at this and say "Heck no".

12 volts DC

So what we do is, use 12 volts DC. As long as the entire system is under 55W, we get to play under the easier Class II wiring rules.

So you have a UL-listed 12V DC power supply making up to 55W of 12V DC.

Then we come over to the drawer with, well, I would still use AC mains-grade armored cable, say 12/2, or a UL-listed pantograph arrangement as you see pictured in that product. It needs to be made to flex, though - you can't use in-wall wiring.

How do we get from 12V to USB? LOL, that's easier to find than eggs. Every convenience store, gas station, cell phone shop, big-box of any kind, etc. sells 12V USB adapters. Usually right up by the checkout.

The USB charging hub may already do this for you.

Given the difficulty of getting a UL Listing for a 120V device, and the ease of simply including a commodity "wall-wart" power supply that is already UL-listed, I would expect most USB charging hubs already make a DC transition using a "wall wart" or "power block" of some kind.

They don't even make the wall-wart; they buy it from someone else who already slogged through the difficult UL approval for an AC power device. Their own device proper is an entirely low-voltage creature; and as such it breezed through UL listing since nothing lethal/dangerous needed to be tested for. If you wondered why every darned electronics product in the whole wide world insists on using those annoying wall-warts, yup, that's why.

So simply buy a device like that, which comes with a wall-wart. The wall-wart plugs in at an appropriate FIXED location. Then you either splice in the appropriate cabling, or maybe just wrap the supplied small cable in some wire loom (e.g. the spiral stuff) so it doesn't get chewed up by the drawer going in and out. Run that cable to the moving drawer, and you're all set.

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    Agree with the low-voltage solution - it makes a lot of sense if the goal is "chargers and other USB devices". But as far as AHJ approval, the OP's example product is a plug-in device, so if it has proper UL or ETL listing and installed as designed, end of story. If it were hardwired then it would be, of course, quite different.
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 19:53
  • @manassehkatz-Moving2Codidact Yeah but OP doesn't wanna pay for that. Normally I have zero tolerance for penny pinching, but in that case, I kind of actually sympathize :) Now see, if it were me, I'd change the drawer tracks to steel and energize those at 12V... but I'm crazy :)
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Dec 10, 2020 at 17:21
  • And then putting away the silverware becomes a real-life game of Operation
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Dec 10, 2020 at 17:32

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