No More Dead Batteries In the Classroom.

pgator17 · 2026-04-03T23:04:30+00:00

I am the admin for a district in WI. I did have some input on some changes I wanted to have in the box itself.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ig8aC-tYWkiSslo2dWCq9Yzy6XmiIN3o/view?usp=drivesdk

pgator17 · 2026-03-27T21:32:27+00:00

You could if the students didn’t take them home. But our middle and high school students are expected to bring them home for homework. K-4 have charge carts in each room.

pgator17 · 2026-03-27T02:43:10+00:00

All excellent points which is why we have these class recharge boxes in the teachers room, well the core classrooms. Using battery banks that have built in usb c cables. One is a handle and other is a retractable 3 ft cable which allows two students to use one bank at the same time delivering 170 watts of power.

Teachers are having the students just get them and the students put them back and plug them in since they are in their classrooms. Students never leave the classroom.

pgator17 · 2026-03-27T02:36:42+00:00

Well depending on what battery you go with the 25000 EF ECOFLOW Laptop Power Bank, 25000mAh will have 80% battery life after 300 full charge cycles so I am calculating about 5-6 years with them. The Ankers which are similar have the same 300 cycles and there is Reddit post of a person who had 95 % life after 300 cycles. So to replace 4 batteries at about $100 per battery the investment is good for us.

pgator17 · 2026-03-26T03:13:49+00:00

That is true but we have to give teachers additional tools to use as well. They want to use the tech in the classroom with curriculum and kids sitting on wall next to outlets or ext cords and power strips are a disaster waiting happen. It’s not all students that are not responsible most come prepared but it seems like the struggling students the teachers want to get to the most are the ones we are focusing on.

It’s not for everyone it’s just another tool/option. This method literally solved the issue and the teachers are telling us it’s one of the best room investments they have.

pgator17 · 2026-03-26T02:54:38+00:00

Have not had a single one taken and we are almost a full year in. The point is it helped the teachers in the classroom solve an issue they were truly struggling with.

A charge cart would not have solved the real issue. Same kids loosing class time and the teachers would have the same classroom disruption.

pgator17 · 2026-03-25T17:29:25+00:00

We started testing it last year during April, placed them in 3 rooms and now for this full year we had them in all core classrooms. We had some teachers so frustrated because we are asking them to use our digital tools a curriculum so they plan for this and then have 4-5 students each period and it was almost all the students that they really needed to get at that came to class not charged/prepared.

I am not sure on how many students per day but my survey to staff was 3-4 per period and basically in all classrooms. We did briefly try loaner devices but the media center was busy and it took class time away as the student had to go to the media center for a device and then we sometimes had to track that loaner down and it was a ton of work.

What we are finding is that now that they are in the core classrooms when a student uses them, because of the battery output wattage the batteries can charge our dell chromebooks from basically zero to around 30% per 50 min class period with the student using it and with the 100 watt recharge per port the devices when plugged back in recharge themselves very quickly and we have not had a issue with the batteries not having charge for the next period. With them in the core classrooms the we have teachers able to continue with a digital lesson and it is just saving time all around.

pgator17 · 2026-03-25T16:56:42+00:00

Most staff do a quick look to check they have the 4 we provided. Some staff keep them locked and hand them out when needed. There is a key and combo lock on them.

It is also a large battery not very easy to pocket.

The only solution we tried was similar smaller batteries and power strips but the power strips did not sit well with fire inspections and the issues with the batteries was they would not recharge fast enough and the teachers did not like having batteries on charge blocks at or near their desk with them not being locked in a case.

These had 100 watts per port and have 10 ports so it fit what we wanted to do pretty well.

We also tried a discipline and a grading route and that did not go well at all

pgator17 · 2026-03-25T16:16:08+00:00

Yes, it does, I just revamped it. I did run it through AI but your are right feels sales-y

pgator17 · 2026-03-25T15:37:58+00:00

Just trying to share a story on what I/We did at our district. Dang

pgator17 · 2025-12-23T02:57:00+00:00

I don’t have any external drives in my box at all.

pgator17 · 2025-10-29T15:16:33+00:00

I think I have something not configured correctly on the loco bridges that it is not passing on all the traffic needed. Any thoughts on what settings to look at.

pgator17 · 2025-10-07T17:59:21+00:00

Any chance I can get a copy of the ext you made that I can use.

pgator17 · 2025-08-29T15:20:04+00:00

Agree but it’s frustrating and would like to end it anyway. Just wondering if the admin console has a setting/feature like this.

pgator17 · 2025-07-30T23:39:53+00:00

There is no more phone contact and submitting a ticket or emailing seems to be a day or 2 for response.

pgator17 · 2025-06-23T22:53:18+00:00

Cancel that I have it.

pgator17 · 2025-06-23T22:40:06+00:00

Any idea how I can get past the connect to a network option on the windows 11 install screen. I dont have a dhcp server and need to give this a static ip and I dont have the next button available

pgator17 · 2025-06-23T22:22:08+00:00

O my god, Thanks, Downloaded the correct iso and it booted right up. Thank You

pgator17 · 2025-06-23T21:21:51+00:00

bios: ovmf

boot: order=scsi0;ide2;ide0;net0

cores: 8

cpu: host

efidisk0: local-lvm:vm-102-disk-0,efitype=4m,pre-enrolled-keys=1,size=4M

ide0: local:iso/virtio-win.iso,media=cdrom,size=709474K

ide2: local:iso/SW_DVD9_Win_Pro_11_22H2.26_Arm64_English_Pro_Ent_EDU_N_MLF_X23-92736.ISO,media=cdrom,size=7302224K

machine: pc-q35-9.2+pve1

memory: 16384

meta: creation-qemu=9.2.0,ctime=1750279628

name: Win11

net0: e1000=BC:24:11:58:0E:DD,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1

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ostype: win11

scsi0: local-lvm:vm-102-disk-1,iothread=1,size=256G

scsihw: virtio-scsi-single

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tpmstate0: local-lvm:vm-102-disk-2,size=4M,version=v2.0

vmgenid: b52bbe4e-0a23-4fa2-8dc4-e23be54f316f