keeping cables tidy

[MrP]

whats the best way, i have spent about 4 hours trying to tidy the cables in my coolermaster wave case by tip tying the cables together, and then zip tying the bundles of cables to bits of the chasis, other i have stuffed over the top of the DVD-rom drives at the top of the case to keep them out of the way.

is there a better way of doing it??

also, how is best to keep fan/led cables neat and tidy, i have 2 fans and 2 leds on the front, so i have daisy chained all the molex connectors together and then zip tied then to the back of the hard drive chasis.

whilst its outof the way, it annoys me thats its still a bit of a dogs dinner.

any reccomend a better way of doing it
cheers

[0iD]

I use spiralwrap & route them all behind the motherboard tray.

[bennywidag]

yeah that is the best way, or braiding looks slightly more pro. this is a guide i wrote for another forum.

First things first: the types

-Spiral Wrapping
-Split loom
-Brading
-Cable ties
-and heatshrink to tidy up

Right, cable ties are probably the easiest to do, cheapest and most instantly effective from a messy case. They can be used in conjunction with all of the other methods andare recommended to tidy up cables, attach them to cases and bunch appropriate cables together. they are extremely easy to use and you can for instance, put all cables going to the disk drives together etc.

Spiral wrap is the next easiest form of cable tidying, it is simply a length of plastic pre coiled to 9mm or 6mm diameter. It is very simple to use and all you have to do is either wind it around the cables, after clipping it on, or clip it on and then twist in one direction, which will put it on for you and is much easier. it is best finished off with some heatshrink or, my preference, electical tape which comes in the right colours for most, available from hardware stores. this just neatens a bit and is not really necessary.

Braiding is one of the harder forms of tidying, though simple in principle. you must measure off how much you need of the braiding, and i usually subtract an inch for heatshrink and tidyness at the end. then cut to the right length, using a hot knife or scissors, to prevent the end fraying. if this happens, briefly put the end under a lighter flame to compress the strands. then, if the connectors at the end of your cables are thin enough, press the endd of the braid against your hand so that it increases in width, and you can then easily put this onto the wire. then, using the same action, compress and expand the braid until it gets as far as you need. if you cant fit it over the end, either use a larger braid, r if this will look worse over the whole length, use a molex remover to take the connector off, tie the ends together with elec tape and feed through, then reconnect. mae sure the right wires go back right though. then finish off with heatshrink or elec tape.

Split loom is also very easy, just a length of plastic roll with a slit. to use it simply put the wires in one end, slide your thumb along and this will put the wires in place. finish off as before. simple.

Heatshrink is just a thin section of plastic roll that when heated will contract, therefore trapping wires in place. this should not be used as a seperate method, but to finish off other methods of tidying. To shrink it you ca use a heat gun, hair dryer or lighter. i used a lighter as i dont have a heat gun and the hair dryer took too long. however, it did turn the heatshrink black in places. i no longer use this method as it is too slow, usually doesnt contract enough and is not as easy to use as electrical tape.

There you are, my guide.

useful links

Kit: Fleetwood computers

Guide to molex removal: Spodes abode (a hell of a lot better than mine

anything i have got wrong or should add, please post or whatever.

18/08/2005

Right just to show you that cable tidying alone is not good enough, here is a few pics of my case. both have cable tidyed with spiral wrap and braiding but the second shows cable postitoning is important too.

some cables were also added between the two, so the one with positioning has more than the one without
without


with postitioning:

you cant really see much from that angle but the airflow from the front is greatly improved

how you do this is by tucking the cbles out of site behind the motherboard. this is hard on this case as the motherboard tray is very large, and there are no easy places to put the cables, so i had to route them throught the pus box, throught the drive supports and under the motherboard tray, which looks scappy, but still better than before.
There are some that are simply not long enough to route, so they have to go in sight, but i plan to change this by adding on a new section of wire to each, and routing them out of sight.

this is a picture of behind the motherboard tray, doesnt matter how neat or tidy, as it is out of sight.

Behind


and the end result. with watercooling.

[FEAR]

I made a hole in my motherboard tray up by the PSU, and feed all the wires I dont need through there, and they just tape to the back of the mobo tray, looks very neat.

[spiral out]

I also use spiral wrap and try to route as much as i can behind the motherboard tray.