My finished product, a custom charging station for all of my power tools, based off of Snap-On's powerbank design.

The whole box - finished product.

Here is the basis of the project, a Harbor Freight 7 drawer 18" side cabinet, which I plan to attach to the side of my current 72" roller. I essentially bought this for the outside frame, one of the drawer pulls and the slides. This cost me $190, but for what I got out of it, I think it was a good starting purchase for the project.

I started the project with gutting the box. After removing all of the drawers, I selected 2 top slides, a center slide and 2 bottom slides on the left and 2 bottom slides on the right of the box which I would be keeping to slide the drawer in and out. I drilled out the rivets on the slides I didn't need and then began working on the drawer. First I fabricated the left or "back" panel of the drawer out of 16ga. steel, then used a sheet metal brake to bend the back lip and then a square sheet metal punch to cut out the slots for the slides. After initial installation, I had to "fine tune" the holes either up or down with the punch to get the slides properly aligned.

All tack welded up

I fabricated the bottom pan and right side plate as one piece and then fabricated the back plate as its own. I used 16ga. 1x1 tubing for the front frame and then 16ga 3x1 tubing for the tool rest. My original plan was to have the drag chain rest inside of the 3x1" channel, so I cut the back plate and made the back of the plate open, however, once the drag chain arrived, I discovered that it was too large to fit, so I decided to scrap that idea and instead continued decided to place the drag chain under the tool rest plate which will go under the tool rest and span to the left side plate.

My original intent was to only have a center support and then have a single tab off of the right rail, with the intent of making it as light as possible, however, I had some concerns about the door bending, so I decided to add a full frame for the front.

I used an 80 grit flap wheel to grind down my welds to a smooth finish and to get most surfaces 'paint ready'

I purchased a 125v AC to 12V DC LED lighting driver off of Amazon to provide 12v to my USB charger. The adapter was designed to be a wall adapter, however, after looking at the pictures online, I was pretty certain I would be able to rewire it to be hard wired.

I took apart the AC adapter, cut off the slotted pins and then pulled them out. I took the back plate to a belt sander and sanded down the raised section where the power plug was so that I could mount it flush..

I then removed the circuitry from the case, drilled a 3/8" hole in the case and installed a rubber grommet in the case. I used 14ga. wire to provide leads, then soldered it to the existing leadings, added heatshrink and then used a zip tie to prevent the cable from being pulled out of the case. I reassembled the adapter and then applied headshrink tubing to the leads coming out of the adapter.

I used a dremel with a cut off wheell and a jig saw with a metal blade to cut out the holes for the IEC plug power inlet and USB charger.

I used stainless 8-32 fasteners to secure the power inlet to the case. I ran the bottom screw longer as I will use this screw as my grounding point.

I made a custom harness out of 14ga. wire and heatshrink to wire the power inlet to the power switch and then to the driver. I made a lead which I dropped down the back of the cabinet which will connect to a power strip inside of the drawer.

USB ports powered and working.

I bent up the shelf which will hold the power tools. My plan is to take my hydraulic punch and punch out circle in which each individual tool will sit.

Both upper and lower shelves are welded in place.

I welded tabs to the face off the cabinet which will be used to spot weld the face to cabinet drawer.

Test fitting the drawer after welding in the shelves. Everything is still square and fits well.

I cut a hole in the back of the cabinet right below the lower shelf that the drag chain for the power strip will pass through. I didn't want this passage way to be a wear point, so I cut a piece of 1" wide 16ga tubing using a cold cut blade on a table saw and then used the table saw to miter the corners.


I test fit the cabinet front and noticed that the top bend was quite noticeably out of square to the face. I have enough sheet metal left that I will re-fabricate the face.

I did some slight tweaks to the door and ended up getting the door pretty much square to the cabinet.

While over at a friend's shop, I made a little more progress on the project. I picked up a Tripp-Lite power strip with a built-in USB adapter to put on the drawer. I wanted to ground the drawer in addition to grounding the case, as I didn't want the ball bearings on the slide to be the primary means of grounding between the case and the drawer, so I opted to add a grounding jumper to the power strip.

Cracked open the case on the power strip.

I drilled a small hole through the grounding pad on the PCB and then soldered the grounding jumpers together so that I could ground the drawer.

I drilled a hole in the plastic case to add a rubber grommet to route the grounding jumper through.

I pre-soldered the end of the grounding jumper, bend it a right angle, routed it through the PCB, soldered the two grounds together and then routed the grounding jumper through the case and out through the grommet.

Reassembled the power strip, routed the wire through the drag chain and terminated the ends of the cord.

I didn't have an exact measurement for the cord, but once I got it through the drag chain, I realized that it is likely going to be a bit long and I might have to trim down the length of both the grounding jumper and the primary cord.

I laid out the drills one by one to figure out what spacing I wanted for each drill and then drilled out the hole centers and used a Greenlee hydro punch to punch each hole in the top shelf.

I used a tubing cutter to shorten the handle, then used a dremel with a cutting disk to cut the keyway in the handle, then marked and drilled the measurements on the cabinet for the new handle placement. I will install rivnuts and reattach the handles with 1/4-20 hex bolts.

I am going to attach the side cabinet to my main chest using rivnuts and 1/4-20 stainless fasteners top and bottom.

I used a spot welder to weld the tabs of the cabinet to the face of the cabinet, then ground them flat using a flap wheel on my grinder.

I used a dremel to cut in the slot for the case lock catch and will rivet in the lock catch once it gets powder coated.

Drawer was powder coated using 2 coat gloss powder coating. Once I got it back, I added the slides and began prepping the drag chain and power lead for installation. This was my first project that I had powder coated, so I learned a little about finishing before getting it over to powder coating, but overall I am very happy with the results.

Drawer slides installed.

My tack welds ended up showing through, which I felt they would and a few ended up popping in the oven, but overall, I am very happy with how it turned out.

Lock latch installed.

I used 8-32 stainless machine screws with lock washers and nuts to secure the lock latch to the back of the case.

To install the drag chain at the back of the case, I laid the drawer on the floor, pulled the drag chain through the port on the back of the cabinet and then set it in the drawer. I did not secure it inside the box first so that I would have some working room to get the drag chain and cable secured to the back of the box.

I installed rivnuts for mounting the power strip and adel clamps on the back of the drawer so that I could have the drawer installed when I was ready to secure the power strip and clamp so that I wouldn't have to fight getting nuts secured on the back of the case.

I made a bracket to hold the drag chain at an angle, sprayed it in auto primer and safety red enamel paint, installed 8-32 rivnuts where the drag chain would attach and then attached the bracket to the back of the case with 8-32 stainless machine screws, lock washers, washers and nuts.

I ended up cutting off about 8" of cord and then recrimped ends on the cable, secured it to the back of the case and then installed the drawer.

I added Kaizen foam to the lower and mid shelf, mounted the power strip, did a little cable management and am good to go!

A month and a half of working here and there and about $500 and I have my own powerbank!

And a little bit of toolporn just for the hell of it. I did all of my drawers in Kaizen foam to allow for quick tool inventory!


Decided that $1600 was a bit too much to pay for a Snap-On KRL1099PBO box, so I decided to fabricate my own side box for my current toolbox out of a Harbor Freight 7 drawer side box. For the thread on this project, go to http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=346953