I had this terribly rocky relationship with a woman and years later she'd gotten a career in tech and apologized saying she now understood my box of cables. That was about the only apology of hers I ever really believed.
Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
241–250 of 464 posts
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#242Key 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…
Also, if you have a heat-sealer, individually bagging the cables before grouping them avoids having cables mate and turn into a Gordian knot. A heat-sealer allows you to make bags that are just the right size for your cable, vs. generic ziplocs.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not for everybody (what ever is, rite?) and since you "hardly have any pairs of cables that are similar enough to be interchangeable" then congrats, you're winning at life and don't need anything like this. The sounds hard Doesn't feel hard to me. I have a bag for USB A, a bag for USB C, and a bag for USB A C. My USB-C charging cables are all 3' or longer, so they're visually distinct from the crappy little cabl…
Definitely not winning at life with this lol, it's actually frustrating because the cables are so similar. One has a higher speed, one has a higher power, one is shorter, one is longer, one is more flexible, one has a display showing when it's connected, etc... and in many cases it's hard to tell which at a glance so it's always a pain trying to figure out if I'm using a cable unnecessarily somewhere and unnecessaril…
When I look up thick thunderbolt 4 cables I see a bend radius of 2 inches at most. And my very thick 15 foot 4K displayport/HDMI cables came packed in a box with a 3 inch bend radius. You can manage a 3 inch bend radius with a quart bag, let alone the 1 gallon or 2 gallon bags that I'd expect to act as reasonable cable storage.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#244[deleted]
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#245Key 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…
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.
I like to use the round Danish butter cookie tins for cable storage.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#246I decided years ago to limit myself to just one box of cables... So then I ended up having to keep finding a bigger and bigger box to switch them to. One thing that bothers me though (or an excuse my brain uses to justify it maybe) is that it feels so wasteful to dump so many cables that will probably end up in landfill when I know there's someone out there who could make use of them. If anyone has a suggestion on th…
Some thrift stores will take them, if you have a good one nearby (I’ve been lucky here, but they’re rare). You can also put a note on your local freebie groups and someone might bite. In some cities you can leave them bagged outside your house with a note and they’ll be gone in hours. On some tech forum classifieds, people would give away cables and junk fans for the cost of the postage.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#247Key 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 n…
Easy. One end in each box.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would consider tossing the usb-a to usb-c cables that do not have a confirmed 56k ohm resistor.
Similarly USB cables that do not carry data lines
I think I disagree. I just (re-)discovered a couple of my cables don't have data lines a few hours ago, prompted by the earlier discussion. My initial instinct was also to throw them away like you said. But then I realized they're actually quite useful for any case where you want to prevent data transmission, whether due to security or other reasons.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#249Earlier 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
Bread ties are good too. Sometimes they're too short, but you can twist a few together
There are similar long coated-wire ties used for gardening.
Zip-ties, velcro, and twine (all suggested previously) also work well.