PowerBox Charging Lockers

A charging locker is a steel locker with power wired into every compartment, so a device is locked away and topped up at the same time. Every charging locker we sell is from the Probe PowerBox range — sixteen listings, four door counts, three charging specifications and two top styles, all 1800 mm full-height, single-column units. This page sets out what actually exists, what each combination costs, and — importantly for anyone writing a specification — what the published product data does not tell you.

Not every combination exists: eight of the twenty-four are missing

Read as "four door counts × three charging types × two tops", the range looks like twenty-four options. It is sixteen. The 10-door and 16-door are fully configured; the 8-door and 4-door are not, and the gaps are not random — there is no mains-only charging locker below ten doors at all.

Door count	3-pin UK mains only	USB-A + USB-C	Mains + USB-A + USB-C
4 door	—	—	Flat only
8 door	—	Flat and sloping	Flat only
10 door	Flat and sloping	Flat and sloping	Flat and sloping
16 door	Flat and sloping	Flat and sloping	Flat and sloping

The practical consequences: a sloping top is unavailable on the 4-door and on both mains-bearing 8-door specifications; and because mains-only is the cheapest specification in the range, its absence at 4 and 8 doors is what makes the small units expensive per compartment. If your requirement is a compact, mains-only charging locker for a reception desk, this range cannot supply it — that is a genuine gap, not a stock position.

USB is the expensive half — by four to six times

The intuitive assumption is that a USB port is the cheap option and a 13 A mains socket is the premium one. In this range it is firmly the other way round. Taking the 300 × 300 mm flat-top units, where all three specifications exist at both the 10-door and 16-door sizes:

Configuration	Mains only	USB-A + USB-C	Mains + USB	Cost of the USB half	Cost of the mains half
10 door, flat	£838.96	£1,090.99	£1,164.50	£325.54	£73.51
16 door, flat	£1,058.65	£1,661.48	£1,770.61	£711.96	£109.13

Reading the table: starting from a mains-only locker, adding USB costs £325.54 on the 10-door and £711.96 on the 16-door. Starting from a USB locker, adding mains costs £73.51 and £109.13. The USB content is 4.43× the price of the mains content on the 10-door and 6.52× on the 16-door. Per compartment, USB runs £32.55 (10-door) to £44.50 (16-door); mains runs £7.35 to £6.82.

The buying rule that falls out of this is simple and slightly uncomfortable: specify USB only where devices genuinely charge over USB. If a fleet of laptops arrives with mains bricks, the mains-only locker does the job for £602.83 less at sixteen doors than the USB-A + USB-C unit. Conversely, if the fleet is phones and tablets, adding a mains socket alongside the USB ports is one of the cheapest options on the page at £6.82 per compartment — worth taking for the sake of the one device that turns up with a plug.

Cost per compartment: the 4-door is the trap

Charging lockers are usually compared on headline price. On this range that is actively misleading, because the price floor sits on a product with very few compartments. At 300 × 300 mm, flat top:

Configuration	Compartments	Price	Per compartment
16 door, mains only	16	£1,058.65	£66.17
10 door, mains only	10	£838.96	£83.90
16 door, USB	16	£1,661.48	£103.84
10 door, USB	10	£1,090.99	£109.10
8 door, USB	8	£873.18	£109.15
16 door, mains + USB	16	£1,770.61	£110.66
10 door, mains + USB	10	£1,164.50	£116.45
8 door, mains + USB	8	£987.31	£123.41
4 door, mains + USB	4	£975.72	£243.93

The spread is 3.7× — £66.17 to £243.93 for one lockable, powered compartment. And the 4-door is not merely the dearest per compartment; it is dearer than the 8-door in absolute terms once you look one line up the list. The 4-door mains + USB is £975.72. The 8-door mains + USB is £987.31 — £11.59 more, for twice as many compartments. That is 1.2% more money for 100% more storage, in the same 300 mm footprint and the same 1800 mm height.

There is one legitimate reason to choose the 4-door anyway: door count sets compartment height, not unit height. No internal compartment dimension is published, but the 1800 mm body is divided four ways instead of eight, so a 4-door compartment is roughly twice the height of an 8-door one — which matters for a 17-inch laptop in a padded sleeve, a hard case, or a two-way radio sitting upright in a drop-in charger. If the devices genuinely need the height, buy the 4-door. If they do not, £11.59 is the cheapest capacity on this page.

Size and depth: the extra space costs less on the dearer locker

Every listing offers the same four sizes — 300 × 300 mm, 300 × 450 mm, 380 × 450 mm and 450 × 450 mm (width × depth). Going from the smallest to the largest is a substantial increase in usable volume, and it is priced inconsistently across the range:

Configuration	300 × 300	300 × 450	380 × 450	450 × 450	Full upgrade
16 door, mains only	£1,058.65	£1,115.70	£1,189.24	£1,267.66	£209.01 (+19.7%)
16 door, USB	£1,661.48	£1,711.40	£1,775.74	£1,844.35	£182.87 (+11.0%)
16 door, mains + USB	£1,770.61	£1,820.53	£1,884.89	£1,953.50	£182.89 (+10.3%)
10 door, mains only	£838.96	£881.20	£932.75	£988.00	£149.04 (+17.8%)
10 door, USB	£1,090.99	£1,127.94	£1,173.06	£1,221.40	£130.41 (+12.0%)
10 door, mains + USB	£1,164.50	£1,201.46	£1,231.93	£1,269.50	£105.00 (+9.0%)

Two things are worth pulling out. First, the same physical upgrade costs more money on the cheaper locker. Taking a 16-door from 300 × 300 to 450 × 450 costs £209.01 on the mains-only unit and £182.89 on the mains + USB — £26.12 less on the dearer product. At ten doors the difference is larger: £149.04 against £105.00, a gap of £44.04. If you are specifying the full-size compartment anyway, the price gap between the specifications narrows by that amount, which changes the mains-versus-USB arithmetic in the section above.

Second, on one listing the middle step is cheaper than the step before it. The 10-door mains + USB runs £36.96, then £30.47, then £37.57 — every other listing in the range rises steadily. Going from 300 × 450 to 380 × 450 on that one product costs £30.47, where the same step on the 10-door mains-only costs £51.55. If you are buying the 10-door mains + USB, the 380 mm width is unusually good value; check the two figures on the listing rather than assuming a percentage.

Flat or sloping: £24.77 per column, and it does not vary

Every PowerBox unit is a single column, which makes this range the cleanest test of the sloping-top charge anywhere in the Probe catalogue — there is no column count to confound it, and, uniquely, the electrical specification varies while the top style is held constant. Across 28 matched flat/sloping observations — seven product pairs at four sizes each — the fee lands between £24.70 and £24.78, every time. It does not move with door count, with size, or with whether the locker carries mains, USB or both.

Configuration	Sloping premium	Per compartment
8 door, USB	£24.78	£3.10
10 door (all three specifications)	£24.76 – £24.78	£2.48
16 door (all three specifications)	£24.76 – £24.78	£1.55

A sloping top stops items being left on top of the unit and stops dust settling, which is why it is usually specified for receptions, corridors and other public-facing positions. At £1.55 per compartment on a 16-door it is close to a rounding error; the reason to choose a flat top is not cost but whether you intend to stand something on it or fit the unit beneath shelving.

Colour is free

Each listing carries 84 variants: four sizes multiplied by three carcass colours (Silver/Grey, Black, White) and seven door colours (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Black, White, Silver). All 21 colour combinations are one price at a given size, on all sixteen products. There is no premium for a bright door or a black carcass, so choose the combination on wayfinding and on how well it hides handling marks, not on budget.

What the specification states — and what it does not

Verified across all sixteen listings: 1800 mm height on every one (the string "1780" appears nowhere in the range, so unlike the standard imperial lockers there is no imperial-height PowerBox); cold-rolled mild steel, powder-coated, on all sixteen; a Type A cam lock fitted as standard on all sixteen; one charging outlet per compartment; certified internal wiring with a single mains feed and an external safety isolator; CE/UKCA marked; UK manufactured by Probe. The word "welded" appears zero times — as with the rest of the Probe locker range, the bodies are cold-rolled and formed.

The following are not stated anywhere in the published product data, and if any of them matter to your specification you should get them in writing at quotation:

• Charging output. No wattage or current figure is published for any port, mains or USB, on any of the sixteen listings. For a product whose purpose is charging, this is the specification most worth asking about — a USB-C port delivering 5 W and one delivering 65 W are very different products, and the difference decides whether a laptop actually charges during a shift or merely holds its state.
• Electrical standard. CE/UKCA marking is stated; no EN or BS standard is named against it. A tender asking which standard the marking is declared to will not find the answer here.
• Protective device. An external safety isolator is stated. No fuse rating, RCD provision or circuit requirement is given, which is what an electrician will ask for before connecting the unit.
• Ventilation. No ventilation or heat-dissipation statement appears on any listing — relevant where lithium devices are charged in a closed steel compartment. Our guide to charging lithium batteries safely at work covers the wider duty.
• IP rating and steel gauge. Neither is published.
• Warranty, lead time and stock status. None of the three appears on any of the sixteen listings.
• Lock options. The Type A cam lock is the only lock in the range — no padlock hasp, coin return, combination or electronic option is offered on any PowerBox unit. Our guide to locker lock types sets out what that means for master-keying a site.

Where each configuration fits

Schools and colleges. The 16-door mains-only unit at £66.17 per compartment is the cheapest powered compartment on the page, and suits form-group phone storage where devices arrive with their own plug. Where a year group shares Chromebooks, the mains + USB 16-door covers both. See also our school lockers buying guide.

Offices, call centres and control rooms. The 10-door in mains + USB is the workhorse: enough compartments for a team, a compartment height derived from dividing the 1800 mm body ten ways, and both charging methods for a mixed fleet.

Gyms and leisure. High door counts and USB only, in a sloping top for the £1.55-per-compartment premium — members charge phones, not laptops. Pair with cloakroom benches and see our guide to gym and leisure lockers.

Reception and visitor areas. The 16-door sloping in USB, at 300 × 300 mm — the smallest compartment is ample for a phone, and the sloping top keeps the unit tidy in a public space.

Industrial and security. Two-way radios, scanners and torches usually need mains and height: the 8-door mains + USB at £987.31, or the 4-door where the device genuinely needs 450 mm.

If charging is not actually required, the wider locker range is considerably cheaper per compartment — the standard metric and vision panel collections start well below these figures, and the single-width and wide-format pages cover the same one-column footprint without the electrics. Our laptop charging lockers buying guide and how to choose metal lockers for the workplace go further into the specification decisions, and staff and workplace lockers covers the non-charging equivalents. Door-count pages: 10 door and 16 door.

All prices on this page are the current listed prices for the 300 × 300 mm size unless otherwise stated, and are shown for comparison — check the product listing for the size and colour you need.