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Controlling the Cable Congestion?

Posted by Cliff on from the preventing-the-rat's-nest dept.

JaytheMover asks: "I've just moved, and my wife won't allow me to set up my desk as I had before. I had a gaggle of cables under my desk which only NOW seems to bother her in the new house. How do you guys keep this mess under control? I Googled 'Cable Organizer' and found this thing called the cable organizer at cable-safe.com which hangs the cords like in a closet or this cable snake thing which binds them all together. What do Slashdot readers use to keep their cable clean and their wives happy?"

3 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. I'm cheap. by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 1, Interesting

    To organize cables, I usually use my staple gun and a bunch of twist-ties. It's (to some extent) adjustable and reusable, and certainly effective.

  2. Just to be clear... by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I do *NOT* staplegun the wires to my desk. I staplegun the TWIST TIES to the desk, then hang the wires on them.

    For heavy wires, doubling up the staples and doubling or tripling up on the twist ties is a good idea.

  3. Re:Mine by x00101010x · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I combine that with the use of zip-ties and brackets.

    I have a nice corner desk, but the box is on the left and the keyboard and mouse cords come from the right, I also have a ton of periphirals. I got tired of kicking the mouse out of my hand and wanted to be able to streach out my feet without fear of unplugging stuff, so...

    First, I decided to group things by device, so i zip-tied the mouse and keyboard together, leaving enough slack to pull out the keyboard tray and get full range on the mouse. I then ziptied my right joystick to that bundle (i also have a left joystick).

    Next I grouped all my coax cable together (Video and Data) in nice runs along the wall using some cheap nail in brakets. I then realized i could also use those to nail the bundle of keyboard/mouse/joystick cables to the underside of my desk. So I did.

    Then I nailed my powerstrips to the wall and found the best routes the cables and attached them to the wall and bundled multiple cords going to the same destination from the wall runs.

    I continued with all the other cables, bundling and nailing as needed.

    Any excess slack was taken up and zip-tied into nice loops.

    Where possible, I ran the cables at levels where they would be out of site by somebody standing around the office.

    Took about 2 and a half hours, but well worth it. now i can see all my cables, and a flick of a knife is much better than the time it used to take to untangle things to extract a single cable.
    It looks nice and organized. I can streach out without fear of unplugging things. and my cats have a new place to play (a little bitter apple spray keeps them from even thinking about biting the cords, and since they don't dangle they're not tempted to bat at them).

    --
    DONT PANIC