Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#31

Post by qwerpy » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

Night_Thastus wrote: post #5

I do have a big box 'o cables, though organization is getting difficult. I need some way to organize them into broad categories (USB, audio, power, ethernet, etc).

That's pretty much exactly my organization, instead of a big box I split them into smaller tubs. USB is further divided via labeled bags into USB A->C, USB C, Lightning, and "misc". On top of those I have a R/C car battery/charging tub and a home automation tub.

There are some 3d printer models for building grids of individual cable organizers (https://makerworld.com/en/models/946444-gridfinity-cable-org...) but I have too many cables and my collection is too dynamic to well-utilize something as static as that.

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#32

Post by booty » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

joeconway wrote: post #16

do yourself a favour and buy some zip mesh bag on amazon (often used for children's toy sorting; they're much more robust than zip-locks) and use them to group your cables. the big box(es) goes from a source of stress to an absolute delight.

Grouping is also key to de-duplicating IMO. Can be tough to throw away a single cable. But when you have 10 of them grouped together, you know you can safely get rid of them.

IM/FWIW: I personally have found 4mil ziploc-style bags to be pretty close to indestructible. They're like thick evidence locker bags

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#33

Post by mvanbaak » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #23

I still have quite a number of packing cubes with silicone-tie'ed and zip tie'ed cables. I do want to mention though, a huge amount of cables can be replaced by usb-c cables + an adapter. You don't need a bus to HDMI cable: just get an adapter that has usb-c female, that your cable plugs into, that changes it to HDMI. Ditto for displayport, USB micro, USB b, USB a. And for power VFLEX has a quite reasonably priced ad…

> a huge amount of cables can be replaced by usb-c cables + an adapter.

And now you have a bunch of boxes with adapters ;P

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#34

Post by joshstrange » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

booty wrote: post #24

Key for me is to "group" cables. For example, I have a bag of USB-C cables, a bag of USB-A cables, etc. Grouping them is key to deduplicating. It's easy to look at a single legacy USB A-to-B "printer" cable in isolation and think "I might need this someday!" Because you really might need it someday. However, if you group them you might see that you have ten of them. And then you can get rid of... maybe 8 of them. I a…

This bags or bins or whatever your preferred organization method is. Don't just have "cables" group them. This is how I discovered "yeah, I don't need all these DVI/VGA cables and I can do with only 10 extra HDMI cables".

I'll second "grouping" with "capability sorting". Get a cable tester and sort your cables by Charge/USB speeds. Even with my default "grouping" of things like "USB-C -> C", "USB-A -> C", etc I still was buying new cables for projects/uses since I wanted to make sure I got exactly the speed/power requirements right. Now all my cables are sorted by capability and that led to more purging and less purchasing since I can go to my cable bins and grab exactly what I need.

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#35

Post by bityard » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #23

I still have quite a number of packing cubes with silicone-tie'ed and zip tie'ed cables. I do want to mention though, a huge amount of cables can be replaced by usb-c cables + an adapter. You don't need a bus to HDMI cable: just get an adapter that has usb-c female, that your cable plugs into, that changes it to HDMI. Ditto for displayport, USB micro, USB b, USB a. And for power VFLEX has a quite reasonably priced ad…

You're not wrong, but many times I've gone looking for a specific adapter (because I already had a similar cable) and found out that the adapters _usually_ cost as much or more than just buying the cable.

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#36

Post by cesaref » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

How on earth do you survive with just one big box of cables? I've got mine sorted into plastic storage boxes with labels, so things like 'Firewire' or 'Monitor' or 'SCSI' can get me to a particular box to sort through. I recently needed a SCSI-2 terminator to connect a CD-ROM drive to a 1990s sampler, and my box came up trumps. It's so pleasing when you find stuff like that...

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#37

Post by VariousPrograms » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

Whoever does need it, I give you permission to throw out all your old cables, power adapters, and routers. Yes, on the off chance you do decide you need a Palm III dock, Linksys WRT54G, or Sony PSP charger that means you'd have to buy one on Ebay, but you can cross that $10 bridge if it actually happens.

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#38

Post by moritzwarhier » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #6

In my big box of cables I have, among other things, a double-ended USB-A cable. I understand that this is absolutely not standards compliant, and I have absolutely no idea of where I got it from. I have never used it. But it is a thing that exists. Getting rid of almost 10 different proprietary charging cables for pre-smart phones and some old laptops felt great though :P

You and the other responders are probably familiar with it, but you made me look up this decent StackExchange answer again, coming from a search for "the forbidden usb cable" :)

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/444287

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#39

Post by bluefirebrand » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

rodrodrod wrote: post #4

I have a transparent plastic box of my own, with cables twist-tied and sorted into labeled zip bags. The box stays, but cables come and go. I cleared out some PS/2 related cables recently, after not owning any hardware with that port for like a decade now.

I'm pretty sure those are easy to find usb adapters for it you ever do need them in the future anyways.

Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

#40

Post by BorisMelnik » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

I have a rack of boxes of cables in my home, its not that out of the ordinary since I'm in the industry and am the network admin for my entire block in my housing community.

The other day I was fabberglased I could not find an HDMI to HDMI cable! HDMI > DVI yes, to VGA yes, to display port yes, to mini-HDMI yes. it was so shameful, for me having to go to amazon/best buy to purchase an HDMI cable is the lowest of the low.