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

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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

#121

Post by jaggederest »

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…

Proper flaking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbxMyytWw60

Ziptie once coiled, attach label for what format / length.

Bag cables with the same connectors. If you have more than fit in a gallon ziploc you should probably reduce them.

Bonus if you hang them on a pegboard so you can see them with big clear labels on each bag.

Edit: and shrinkwrapped labels on each end (e.g. 12345-USBC-2m) for double bonus points so that you never have to trace a cable to find the other end.

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

#122

Post by sokoloff »

jtbetz22 wrote: post #82

I periodically go through the big box of cables and pull out anything that I don't expect to ever need again. I put those in another box, seal it completely, and write a message on the outside along the lines of "presumed useless - Sep 2016". If I come across that box in, say, September 2026, I feel entirely comfortable tossing the whole thing.

My problem is I would feel entirely too curious to see what was in that ersatz time capsule I created a decade ago.

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

#124

Post by smrq »

SmasherEpilepti wrote: post #106

Recently, I was screwed by my big box of cables, when I pulled out a SATA power connector for my modular power supply, and learned very quickly that though the ports universally fit across modular PSUs, the pinouts are not actually intercompatible, and you can and will fry your hard drives. I didn't know this; I had foolishly assumed that SATA power connectors were standardized on both ends.

Modular PSU cables never go in the big box. They go back in the PSU box if I'm being smart. Then I know which PSU they came from and can throw them out in ten years along with the PSU itself.

(I'm rarely smart and have a second big box of modular PSU cables that I maybe ought to get rid of.)

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

#125

Post by locust101 »

SmasherEpilepti wrote: post #106

Recently, I was screwed by my big box of cables, when I pulled out a SATA power connector for my modular power supply, and learned very quickly that though the ports universally fit across modular PSUs, the pinouts are not actually intercompatible, and you can and will fry your hard drives. I didn't know this; I had foolishly assumed that SATA power connectors were standardized on both ends.

I had the same thing happen to me when I plugged in my massager charger into the blood pressure monitor and fried it

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

#128

Post by dataflow »

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…

That sounds hard. Is a USB-A-to-C cable in the A group or C group or neither? What about the inverse? What about cables that only do data but can't transmit enough power? What about cables that are slow but high power? What about thick cables like USB4 that barely bend or fit in the bag? What about male-to-female vs. male-to-male? What about brand-specific cables that have their own abilities (say, high-powered but not PD)? The list goes on and on...

I think I hardly have any pairs of cables that are similar enough to be interchangeable, and at this point most of them are USB-C, so they'd all mostly end up in the same bag if that's the criterion.

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