Building smart universal charging station

[ptricks]

After the SO became annoyed with all the different devices we have to keep charged, tablets,phones, laptops,mp3 players, etc she has tasked me to building something we can use to charge them all from one location in the house without a myriad of adapters.

I got the laptop part covered but the other devices all use USB to charge and all seem to want different pin voltages on D+ and D- to do the fastest charging rate. I want to do this a smart way where a micro will work as a host , query the device,  then select the best D+, D- combination for the device connected and any port can charge any device.  I know about the short D+ D- thing , but that isn't always best as I had an older phone burn itself out because it pulled over 1.5A  from that configuration.
Apparently the manufacturer didn't employ protection, assuming only the approved charger or a current limited port would be used.

[exmadscientist]

Don't bother with a microcontroller. Who wants to program all the bizarre USB sub-sub-sub cases for proper detection? And you'll need a pile of supporting analog circuitry too.

Instead just grab one of the ICs that manufacturers make expressly for this purpose. Off the top of my head, I know FSA832/BQ24392 are the device side chips for this. You should be able to easily find the host side ones. (Start with TI; they're not the absolute cheapest, but they definitely make what you want.) There are many, many, many ICs made just for this. I work on devices, not hosts, and I'm always coming across stuff that looks perfect for making a very smart device that can charge from anything... except it's actually a host-side part.

[Kilrah]

Or just get a few of those things made specifically for that purpose and call it a day

[technix]

Just grab a 7-port powered USB Hub, a 5V 10A power supply, and a Raspberry Pi. The Pi have adequate drivers allowing it to negotiate power delivery and put all devices into charging state, maybe rate limited.