Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.jim-nielsen.com

361–370 of 465 posts

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

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a cheap pack of 5 colors of 3m electrical tape. Each cable gets one or two pieces of tape: Data: White if usb2 Blue if it supports USB 3 data (because 5Gbps USB 3 ports are mostly blue) Green if TB/USB4/40Gbps Power: None if low/no Power Delivery Yellow for 45W PD Red for 65W+ PD

I suggest finding something else, electrical tape starts coming off after a few years, leaving behind sticky residue that's impossible to remove without some kind of solvent. Same goes for masking tape.

Heatshrink?

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

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't group exactly, nor do I want to de-duplicate, but I've organised my boxes on the shelf and sorted and labelled them recently, in what seems the most logical way at the time; I have "networking", "USB", "power", "A/V", "PC" and some as of yet unlabelled ones with random stuff I can't place in the others. There is some unfortunate crossover regarding where things belong because some USB are for power, some are…

> because as it stands I have to pull out my little LED cable tester thing You can keep it in the same box!

I thought about that as I was writing, I think I might do just that!

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

#363
Hot tip - buy a box of small / medium zip lock bags and bag them all up. Duplicates in the same bag are ok (10cm / USB-C) etc.

For the last 10 years my "techno box" has been a box of bags - the cables don't get tangled and small bits (adaptors / notes) get to live with the cables. Its one of the rare few home environment hacks I actually have!

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

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A secret I've found is use hair ties instead of rubber bands with cables, they survive long stints in the garage much better

I bought a small garden twist tie roll years ago. I don't have a garden but I have boxes of cables. Probably won't run out for another 10 years.

I’ve cut up a broken USB cable and use the wires to tie up... other wires usually, for cables I have velcro, but I think it could work there as well.

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

#365

Hot tip - buy a box of small / medium zip lock bags and bag them all up. Duplicates in the same bag are ok (10cm / USB-C) etc. For the last 10 years my "techno box" has been a box of bags - the cables don't get tangled and small bits (adaptors / notes) get to live with the cables. Its one of the rare few home environment hacks I actually have!

This post isn't convincing me. I spent so much time meticulously organizing my techno box. I bought a back of the door shoe holder for tech. Every wire, charger, usb key, web cam, airline earbud, everything. It's been beautifully organized for years.

It's been beautifully organized and useless for so many years that it's all junk now. Nothing is using USB A/B. The airline earbuds are as much trash today as they were then. The usb keys are very old and untrustworthy. Even the USB-C wires are all out of spec, won't charge modern phones, etc. The old webcams look like true trash compared to the modern ones. Etc etc

And this post is basically "hoard all this garbage because in 10 years you might need one thing"? I'm sorry, but "buy that one thing for a few bucks off amazon the one time you need it" is looking a lot more attractive than "meticulously maintain a tech hoard to save $3 on a single use wire"

In engineering terms, it feels like my tech hoard is an automation I spent two weeks writing, for code that only ever runs once every ten years.

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

#366
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…

> clear 2mil generic ziploc style baggies > transparent plastic box > Banker's Boxes Do not do this. All plastic baggies, storage tubs, and grocery bags, are going to build up with static electricity. While it may seem totally fine to drop inert cables into a plastic bag, eventually you'll come up against a USB stick, or an SSD or SDRAM, or something, and that ESD damage will not be a pleasant customer experience. Go…

Have you ever had anything go wrong that you could attribute to storing cables like this?

I understand the theoretical concerns here, but it feels like an overkill in real world situations.

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

#367
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember CD spindles? Those are were a quarter of my cables live now. They can be stacked! There's also a few boxes and one tech bag. Also, the 15m (50ft) HDMI cable doesn't fit anywhere so it got it's own space.

Ha! I use CD spindles for… wait for it… CDs! Just opened the second drawer of my desk and counted four spindles of blank CDs and DVDs that I haven't used in years. (I also hoard blank CD/DVD jewel cases. Who says technology ruins lives?)

For those CD-Rs that you have used, make sure you make a backup soon-ish – they degrade over time!

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

#368
post #58
post #2

You’re not serious about it if you only have one box

For real, I have like 200 kilos of cables. I could very likely reduce that down to something less severe, but that involves sorting and inventorying 200 kilos of cables.

Just begin. You don't need an inventory. Just start by dividing them into piles on the floor, organized by role.

The biggest piles can get further subdivided into more-specialized roles.

There will be piles that consist of memorable cables that have interfaces you haven't used in years. Segregate these unicorns; they'll be handled with special care later on.

After that, you've got a broad selection of current-vintage stuff that is in active use -- all laid out before you. So just spend a few minutes to pick out a few nice examples from each remaining pile. A few cat5-ish cables of various lengths. Some AV interconnects of different descriptions. A few universal power cables: IEC, figure-8, and Mickey Mouse. Pick out the very best of the USB cables, and of the SATA cables, and whatever else you're making use of in 2026.

Wrap each of those selections up neatly and put them in appropriately-small boxes. Label each box by role. Put each of these boxes away somewhere that is both out of the way, and able to be quickly returned to later.

That was easy.

The remaining piles on the floor are just scrap. Make a plan to scrap them and package them appropriately. Put that package near the front door.

---

Now we get to the really fun part. All those precious historic artifacts that were carefully isolated before? It's time to sort those.

Who knows when a 24-pin dot matrix printer could turn up that you need a DB-25 to Centronics cable for testing with, or you might find a use for the 15-pin PC joystick splitter? That PSX controller extension was hard to find even when it was new.

It's all very important stuff with very specific roles. It's not like any of these things are being made in factories every day anymore. And it all has history.

So take a photo of this amazing collection of vintage cabling, and then package it all with the reverence and care that it deserves. After that, simply put that package near the front door with all of the other scrap cabling.

Nothin' to it.

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

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly USB cables that do not carry data lines

Though these should be cut in half before discarding so that no one "helpfully" retrieves them.

The USB-A half is helpful sometimes. I’ve soldered mine to a barrel plug and I’m using it to power various 5V devices now.

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest finding something else, electrical tape starts coming off after a few years, leaving behind sticky residue that's impossible to remove without some kind of solvent. Same goes for masking tape.

Heatshrink?

Heatshrink is great if you're making cables but you would need a really high shrinkage ratio to fit over the connector and then shrink enough, the common cheap stuff is usually 2:1, maybe 3:1.

You could cut the heatshrink tube, wrap it around the cable and then secure it with transparent tape. It would slide around but at least it wouldn't leave residue on the cable.

Maybe clip-on cable markers like this? [1] Easy to 3D print if you're so inclined.

[1] https://uk.farnell.com/multicomp-pro/pb-250-sm0c/cable-marke...

Post reply on HN