StarTech.com Mountable 4 Port Rugged Industrial USB Hub (ST4200USBM)

I am rebuilding a boat and needed a place at the Navigation station where I could charge cell phones and tablets. I installed this powered USB hub on the back side of the wooden panel, installed the power into the boats power supply and hooked up 2 of the ports to a fancy USB hub that had a nice face plate and was presentable from the front side of the panel.What I like most about this product is that the power supply can be between 7v and 24v.This is working perfectly and allows me to turn the unit on and off through a panel mounted 12v DC switch so that I can conserve power and not have it on all the time. It allows me to also connect a laptop which not only allows me to use the extra keyboard and mouse from the laptop as well.

For car use. Added behind head unit to add more ports, and higher charging rates.Installed an aftermarket Android radio. This gives me 5 ports total (instead of the two on the head unit), and much higher charging output.12v powered, with separate chassis and USB ground connections (fixes USB ground loop problems). Beefy internal power supply and components. Metal case and rack ears. Good internal build quality (I own an electrical engineering design firm).Bonus: if you open the case (does not void warranty) there is a jumper to force the unit to supply *all* the 5v USB needs. Keeps downstream USB devices from using weak head unit power supply. Very useful.

Update: removed one star.The USB sockets are too close together, only the very slimmest devices can be inserted next to each other without interfering, which is to say causing them to wedge out of alignment in their socket which can cause connection problems.Orig: five starsThis device is rugged, metal and has solid mounting ears. All the connectors are first rate and I expect many years of reliable service from it. It’s a little pricy but worth it for what you get imo.I strap a pi0 to it with zip ties and screw this in place. It’s powered from my offgrid cabin 12v DC supply. The pi powers and uploads to an arduino and reads an incoming serial line logging the data and this hub lets me use usb for all connections - no more having to use the pi0 onboard uart (which caused the loss of a pi0 during an electrical storm —- when pi0’s die this way they short, that device was pulling 1.2A @ 5v and it was *very* hot).I have not verified that a usb sdcard reader works with this hub and that is necessary for me to do backups of the live boot drive with all the arduino sources and logger data so I will find out and add that here.

I have used this hub for more than a year for a demanding application that involves a good deal of exposure to temperatures between -20 and +100 F. Over this time period, performance has been flawless. The hub is easy to mount because of the pre-drilled mounting holes. The wide range of usable DC input voltages is a nice feature, and the ability to run the hub from the same 12 volt power source that I use for my other equipment has been very helpful. In my case I used a pair of male pin connectors to make the power connections to the female pin connectors, which are secured by small set screws. The quality of this unit is much better than ordinary USB hubs and the price is very reasonable.

Bought one ten years ago, still working great, and am buying more whenever I need more usb ports that can be individually power controlled (by uhubctl on linux).They can mount on a DIN rail, and a recent order came without a DIN clip, or perhaps I lost it. Startech provided great customer support, shipping out two DIN clips for free.

I don't know if I received a bad batch or if this is standard for this product, but the ones I received were junk. The pins of the USB plugs bent when a plug was inserted. This happened with both units I purchased. Even when the pins did not bend, the connection is loose, much to unreliable for any USB application. I have never had pins bend on any USB socket, even on a cheap $5 hub. For my application (telescope control), this is unacceptable.

Was recommended this by astrophotographers that operate gear outdoors and off of 12V batteries, and this is what I use it for.The voltage range the device accepts is fantastic. The screw-down cable connector is easy to use and very secure. The USB ports connect and hold well even with cables that move around. No intermittent connections. Indicators easily tell when cables are connected.The flaw is that the green LEDs are quite bright in the dark, and I needed to place tape over them when operating the telescope. For most users this will not even be an issue.I eventually plan on buying a USB3 version one I get some gear that requires it.

Works As Described