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 also (mostly) put individual cables into baggies. You can get clear 2mil generic ziploc style baggies for super cheap on Amazon or elsewhere. $15 for 200 or something. Prvents tangles and way less effort than wrapping or tying them.
joshstrange 15 hours ago [-]
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.
booty 14 hours ago [-]
God, yeah. I try to label the USB-C cables directly by capability with my label maker, if they are more than basic charging cables.
dataflow 10 hours ago [-]
What marker do you use to mark them? Is the ink durable and easy to read?
mceachen 5 hours ago [-]
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
dns_snek 2 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
user_of_the_wek 2 hours ago [-]
You could even do combinations of colors like on resistors.
Evidlo 1 hours ago [-]
Might get sticky residue after a few years
dataflow 3 hours ago [-]
Love this, that sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing!
aaronax 6 hours ago [-]
A label maker, as they said they use, prints durable and easy to read labels.
dataflow 6 hours ago [-]
Whoops, thank, I can't read - I misread label maker as label marker!
theturtle 11 hours ago [-]
I use a white paint pen. DATA and NO DATA.
dminuoso 15 minutes ago [-]
On a side note: grouping cables based on the connector form factor is evil when you include USB-C.
Which of the cables are for PD? How much power? Can they do USB? If yes, at which of the dozen speeds? Is it a Thunderbolt cable? Which TB version? Is it certifiable or just blatantly unstable when running 40Gbit/s? Or is it some proprietary alt mode cable? And which ones are just spec breaking fire hazards if you tried PD with 240W through them? Do the cables have markings to tell you the capabilities? Are they even correct? Were they put on as a lie to upsell cheap USB 2.1 cables?
Bonus points if there are cables with some sort of “adapter” dangling in front (quotes because these are not a thing in USB). Double all your points if there is an USB-C to USB-C extension cord in the box.
It is certainly a box of mysteries.
I do not mean to invalidate your organizational scheme, but every time I am reminded of USB I have an irrational desire to rant about the flaws of USB-C.
OroPla 9 hours ago [-]
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.
demritocracy 9 hours ago [-]
A secret I've found is use hair ties instead of rubber bands with cables, they survive long stints in the garage much better
nottorp 2 minutes ago [-]
I bought a 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.
ssl-3 7 hours ago [-]
I double the cables over until they're short enough, and then tie them into a loose half knot.
No fasteners to wish for, or to fail.
Both ends of every cable are always next to each other for identification at a glance.
Different cables cannot tangle with each other in a box.
There are no axial twists imparted into the cable.
(Stage hands hate this technique, but this isn't stagecraft.)
demritocracy 5 hours ago [-]
another benefit of the hair tie method is when you go to use the cable, you can take as much length as you need from either end, then bunch/coil 'n wrap the rest with the hair tie. You have given me a lot to think about though, I'm always looking for ways to improve my cable storage techniques
somehnguy 7 hours ago [-]
I use cable velcro ties. A big roll of them is cheap.
tom_alexander 8 hours ago [-]
I use twine for the same reason. Dirt cheap. Lasts forever. Doesn't leave residue on your cables. The downside is I end up cutting the twine when I need to use the cable but a couple inches of twine in insignificant.
nikau 7 hours ago [-]
Used bicycle tube cut into rings make the best elastic bands, they don't degrade
bsoles 8 hours ago [-]
I routinely steal my wife's hairbands to tie various cables in my cable stash. You can never have enough USB cables of various types. But as Murphy dictates, the USB cable that I need now is one that I don't have in my stash.
demritocracy 5 hours ago [-]
I started with the wife's stash, then bough a few thousand in bulk so i would never have to worry about it again
raphar 8 hours ago [-]
you'll die violently if she find out you are behind the dissapearance of her hairbands. (At least that would happen to me)
ChoGGi 8 hours ago [-]
Garden stores/sections sell circles of green Velcro you can cut; I figure of it's good enough for UV then it'll work in a box.
As a bonus, you don't need to raid her hairbands.
homeonthemtn 8 hours ago [-]
Ooooooo...... I hadn't thought of this. Thank you!
mauvehaus 8 hours ago [-]
Bike shops have yards of that stuff in the late winter/early spring. At least Trek shops do, dunno about others. Trek uses it to tie stuff onto the frame in the box to keep it all from rattling around.
krupan 8 hours ago [-]
Bread ties are good too. Sometimes they're too short, but you can twist a few together
dredmorbius 6 hours ago [-]
There are similar long coated-wire ties used for gardening.
Zip-ties, velcro, and twine (all suggested previously) also work well.
anotherevan 8 hours ago [-]
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?)
lakkal 6 hours ago [-]
I like to use the round Danish butter cookie tins for cable storage.
JMiao 9 hours ago [-]
Thank you for mentioning cd spindles. Good times.
gr4viton2 24 minutes ago [-]
I do group them using one "type" per box too (either "audio cables" or "usb not-C", "usb C" etc. However I do not use zip-bags, instead I use core of toilet rolls - suitable to add length labeling too.
dataflow 10 hours ago [-]
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.
booty 9 hours ago [-]
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 cables that come for free inside the package for various budget-priced gizmos.
My Thunderbolt/USB4 cables are labeled as such, and I am very confused that you are talking about Thunderbolt/USB4 cables so stiff that they cannot bend to fit into a container or bag.... I mean, mine are stiff but not that stiff. Plus these are expensive cables. Not sure I have any spares. Those are bought for purpose.
JMiao 9 hours ago [-]
I would consider tossing the usb-a to usb-c cables that do not have a confirmed 56k ohm resistor.
wredcoll 35 minutes ago [-]
How do you test that?
ThatPlayer 7 hours ago [-]
Similarly USB cables that do not carry data lines
dataflow 6 hours ago [-]
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.
JMiao 5 hours ago [-]
agree. i have no issue with charging only cables, they’re often lighter and more flexible, but i do require the 56k ohm resistor to wrangle misbehaving devices that could start a fire.
aranaur 6 hours ago [-]
Though these should be cut in half before discarding so that no one "helpfully" retrieves them.
dataflow 9 hours ago [-]
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 unnecessarily buying another one because of that.
Charging is an interesting case, I actually deliberately use crappy cables for that too, depending on the charging time I need!
Re: stiffness: I mean I guess it depends, how big is your bag. I'm thinking like a freezer bag not a grocery bag. I could bend them to fit but then I'd probably mess them up.
Dylan16807 6 hours ago [-]
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.
juliie 9 hours ago [-]
My solution is a big drawer block with lots of spots for different cables. USB c cables with video go in the video cable drawer, high power goes in the power drawer, etc. Can't mistake USB c with HDMI (and mini HDMI can burn in hell). And only buy USB C cables that state their capabilities on the housing, if they don't I'll permanently attach them to a place where they can be most useful.
yerald 10 hours ago [-]
Have an A bin, and a C bin, and stretch the A-to-C cords between them. Simple!
pampas 6 hours ago [-]
Easy. One end in each box.
mcapodici 9 hours ago [-]
Unless you are very short on space, keep all 10. Because 50-100% of them will randomly cease to work.
PunchyHamster 8 hours ago [-]
I dunno, I get few thematical boxes of them (audio cables, power cables, usb stuff) and it never happened
stronglikedan 4 hours ago [-]
I group my cables too, but it's all one group in a big plastic bin that gets bigger over time.
wildzzz 3 hours ago [-]
I just sorted through like 15 years of accumulated cables. I kept any that I knew I'd need for projects or things I knew I had a use for. Everything else got slimmed down to a maximum of two of each type and general length and only if they were good quality. Type C and Cat6 were the only cables I kept several of. I threw out so many USB micro and Cat5 cables.
anotherevan 8 hours ago [-]
Yep, ziploc bags with the type of cable written in permanent marker.
Pro-tip, use a hole punch on a corner of the bag. That way, once zipped you can just squeeze it to get the air out.
kjax 8 hours ago [-]
I did the same thing, albeit with some printed labels in the same corner on each, so that it's easy to flip through them when they're stacked together. Has saved me dozens of minutes over the years!
ghaff 3 hours ago [-]
Yep. It's easy to get into the mode of tossing everything into a big box and then you can't find anything anyway. After a tire, I tossed a lot but I find I still need to organize a lot of things down to a manageable remainder where I can actually find things I'm likely use.
rconti 6 hours ago [-]
Yep. I went through my big box of cables, deduped a lot of things, got rid of a bunch of stuff I'd never need, etc.
Of course, I DID need one of them just a month or two later! But it was still a good exercise.
Now I have a whole drawer in a workbench devoted to cables sorted by type. What's surprising is how I NEVER have spare USB-C cables and ALWAYS have spare lightning cables. I mean, it SHOULDN'T be surprising, since more and more devices I own are now USB-C, but it's interesting that I expect my stock to always provide, and it never does -- for that cable type.
The frequency with which I have to buy new USB-C cables of varying lengths really illustrates the migration I've undergone. "Surely I have one I can just snag for the other car..." and I'm always proven wrong.
bityard 15 hours ago [-]
Yeah, this is pretty much what I was going to write. I group my cables into boxes for USB, power, network, audio/video, and power supplies. The boxes are a finite size, and when no more cables will fit into the box, I go through and do some deduplication.
miguel-muniz 13 hours ago [-]
Yes grouping is the important part. The next important part is labeling.
For example, I have a variety of USB C to USB C cables but they each have their own capabilities. Some support high transfer speeds, so I keep them around for connecting SSDs, while others are just USB 2 speeds so they are strictly for charging.
Another case is I have a very specific USB C to USB C cable that looks incredibly generic, but it is for connecting a screen tablet to a laptop because the manufacturer decided to make the port recessed, so only their cable fits. If this cable wasn't labeled as for a specific device, I would have donated it years ago.
It is some effort, for those who don't like to tinker with tech I can understand why they just shove them all into a box in the back of their closet. But I find that culling my cables at least makes me aware of what I have and don't have.
One other suggestion I have is just buying a longer cable than you think you need because eventually you'll have the need for it anyway. I have so many 3.5mm aux cables because I kept changing my desk set up and needing to buy longer and longer cables. If I had just bought the longest cable I could have at the time I would have saved myself some headache.
Another tip is adapters. Sometimes it's easier to just have cables of one type and a bunch of adapters for when you need them rather than having a ton of different cables for each possible scenario. I used to have a mix of RCA and 3.5mm cables but never had the right combination of what I needed at the time. Eventually I caved in and just bought a ton of adapters so I could standardize all the cables and use adapters as needed. Same with USB C cables.
dataflow 10 hours ago [-]
> One other suggestion I have is just buying a longer cable than you think you need because eventually you'll have the need for it anyway.
This only works with cables that bend easily. For something stiff/sensitive like high speed USB4 I found it more problematic than helpful.
asah 11 hours ago [-]
+1000 did _exactly_ this right down to the ziploc. Also a bag for audio, HDMI, old apple cables, and "random" cables. These days, I store the ziplocs in a pelican-type case and that goes in a stack with cases for power cords, camera gear, SBC gear,etc - and the stacks all go on furniture dollies, so I can roll them out.
criddell 11 hours ago [-]
What bag does a cable with HDMI on one end and USB C on the other end go into?
toyg 9 hours ago [-]
The most specialized standard wins, so in this case I'd say HDMI.
fitzroy 9 hours ago [-]
Obviously, one cuts a small hole in the ziploc bags and runs the cable between them so that each connector can be in the correct bag.
hamdingers 10 hours ago [-]
In my system that lands in the "adapters" bin which has has a "display" bag within it.
asdfman123 11 hours ago [-]
That's still a topic of active debate
fragmede 10 hours ago [-]
No, active HDMI cables go in a different bin.
moron4hire 10 hours ago [-]
Either create a 2-dimensional categorization system or create a priority hierarchy.
fuzzfactor 11 hours ago [-]
It's own bag, it won't feel lonely for long :)
jimniels 9 hours ago [-]
Post author here.
I didn’t get into my organizational techniques, but agree with your take! Ziploc bags + a sharpie is exactly how I do it.
Yes, and I do the same for all DC adapters. Writing voltage etc so it's easy to find
jasomill 11 hours ago [-]
I do this. All my FireWire 400-to-800, 400-to-400, 400-to-dinky little Sony 400, etc. cables were all in one box, the FireWire 800-to-Thunderbolt adapter was in the box with my Thunderbolt cables and adapters, and I still didn't find the FireWire 800-to-800 cable I needed to use Target Disk Mode on a friend's Mac a few months ago until a few weeks later when I was cleaning out my storage unit and found an unused FW800 cable in a box I guess I was saving on the off chance that I needed to return a 15-year-old LaCie RAID enclosure that was shucked about a decade ago off for warranty repairs.
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.
MisterTea 9 hours ago [-]
> Ziptie once coiled, attach label for what format / length.
Please god, no more zip ties. Use double sided Velcro strap. You can buy it in a roll and cut to length. Reuse it all you want. Join multiple shorter lengths to make a longer one. Just please don't make me cut another god damn zip tie off a bundled cord. I deal with enough zip tie bondage fetishists at work.
jaggederest 8 hours ago [-]
Cutting the ziptie is half the fun! Just be glad it's not shrink wrapped or clamshelled ;)
aidenn0 7 hours ago [-]
double-sided velcro holds less well and is more likely to stick to things. Just toss a pair of diags in your box if you are worried about getting the zip ties off.
5 hours ago [-]
niccl 7 hours ago [-]
There is a problem with the over-under method use for long cables. If you then grab the wrong end through the centre hole you end up with a cable with a bunch of overhand knots in, which I find much more tedious to deal with than just using normal looping of cables and making sure to add the twist each time.
Back many years when I was touring with bands, at the end of the night you'd see all the lighting crew walking around the stage coiling the long cables, with one end trailing after them, to make sure the twists were correct. That was much more useful than generic over-under for all cables.
over-under has its place, but I don't use it everywhere.
fmajid 6 hours ago [-]
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.
tehlike 5 hours ago [-]
I put them into individual bags, usually group of two of the same kind e.g. USB a to c.
jefftk 11 hours ago [-]
I grouped mine a few months ago. Since then, several times, I've been able to find a cable and use it right away. Before that the prospect of digging through the massive tangle often led me to (lazy!) order new cables.
cyclopeanutopia 8 hours ago [-]
And then, when you really need them, it turns out that out of ten maybe one still works and you couldn't predict which one it will be. :)
darkwater 10 hours ago [-]
I'll pay the price to sound like your average redditor but... thanks, Internet stranger, for this advice. I will follow it from now on - especially for the "prevent tangles" part.
Lucasoato 8 hours ago [-]
Same, my categories are power, data, audio, video (for mysterious reasons networking cables are renting a small space into the video’s box).
VCFundedGenYer 10 hours ago [-]
USB B cables are also notoriously sensitive and the slightest damage can result in malfunctions. Went through this recently with a PreSonus AudioBox.
palmotea 10 hours ago [-]
> USB B cables are also notoriously sensitive and the slightest damage can result in malfunctions. Went through this recently with a PreSonus AudioBox.
Do you mean micro-USB-B? Full size (and mini) USB-B cables (comparatively) built like tanks.
Even though it's annoying, I understand the design tradeoff. You definitely would rather your (replaceable) cable get damaged than the port it's plugged into.
dofm 10 hours ago [-]
I have this issue with cables between my Pi 4B and my slightly old 3D printer.
USB-A to micro-B cables, and the connection is tetchy beyond belief about which ones it will accept and which it won't, either with or without the theoretically-unnecessary-for-this-printer power wire blocker. I can see no rhyme or reason to it but now I have a cable that has a dot painted on it...
ButlerianJihad 14 hours ago [-]
> 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.
I picked up some resealable, aluminized bags and they've lasted for years. I also purchased fistfuls of silica gel packets, and I toss one into each bag when I seal it up.
I'm not sure if organizing "by cable type" would make sense to me, when there are adapters and dongles involved. Some of these baggies have been labeled by the central device, e.g. "All ThinkPad accessories are in here".
You can just cut these to the desired length and wrap them around your cables, for routing or bundling. They are, of course, reusable. I cut little notches in them so that they stay locked to each cable. You could get them in rainbow colors, but I like the white rolls so that I can write on them with a Sharpie.
joquarky 10 hours ago [-]
> I also purchased fistfuls of silica gel packets, and I toss one into each bag when I seal it up.
Keep in mind that not everything stores optimally at very low humidity.
I was surprised to learn (from a recent thread here) that books will degrade more quickly if they are kept completely dry.
booty 14 hours ago [-]
Hmm, interesting. I've never had a static charge issue, but then again, maybe I will someday. I'll definitely look into that next time I mess around with my storage. Thank you.
ThePowerOfFuet 2 hours ago [-]
That link almost gave me cancer. Here's the clean version for those who come after:
I'm going to steal your idea. What ziploc baggie size have you found is best for cables?
corranh 11 hours ago [-]
Quart ziploc for most. A couple gallon sizes for longer or thicker cables.
fuzzfactor 11 hours ago [-]
And then there's the bags from Bed Bath & Beyond where they were made to hold giant pillows and blankets all together . . .
FpUser 5 hours ago [-]
>"Key for me is to "group" cables. For example, I have a bag of USB-C cables, a bag of USB-A cables, etc."
Yeah. I do the same
seany 6 hours ago [-]
This is rough when you have lots of weird one offs. Strange trrs->rj45 for programming a radio you still use but haven't reprogrammed in 10 years; does that go in "generic serial stuff" or "things you want to keep but haven't used in a long time" (right next to the 13w3 -> 5 wire component cable for the sparc in the other corner)
vel0city 10 hours ago [-]
Yeah, "grouping" is largely the way to go for the generic parts, and keeping parts together when they really do need to go together is another.
I used to just have a generic big tub with all the generic cables and wires. Some were nicely wrapped up, others often got themselves into a giant tangled mess. I could never find anything. I got a bunch of small/medium sized plastic bins with lids for all the generic stuff. An old labeler quickly made them "USB cables", "A/V Cables", "DC Power Adapters", "AC Power Cables", "Coax Cables"...now it takes me two seconds to find any particular random cable.
stirfish 11 hours ago [-]
>However, if you group them you might see that you have ten of them.
My first thought was "awesome, what project can I start that uses ten of those cables?"
Cpoll 11 hours ago [-]
Did you come up with anything? Because I'm drawing a blank.
fragmede 10 hours ago [-]
10 printers, one for each finger, outputting a page per letter used by analyzing your bash_history.
programmarchy 11 hours ago [-]
Welcome to the OCD lounge. I also put my cables into bags, which helps me sleep better at night.
sixothree 10 hours ago [-]
Stackable bins work too. Need various sizes as backup as you accumulate though.
SmasherEpilepti 10 hours ago [-]
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.
smrq 10 hours ago [-]
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.)
godelski 10 hours ago [-]
They aren't even consistent within manufacturer!
They're standardized on the device side, but not the PSU side. So always check pinout before you make the very reasonable assumption that if it fits it works
ChoGGi 8 hours ago [-]
> They aren't even consistent within manufacturer!
Especially if the "manufacturer" is just a reseller.
harshreality 9 hours ago [-]
A PSU cable tester is valuable for this. They're much cheaper than a replacement PSU, and you can plug in cables wherever they fit on a PSU, and test whether the output is correct for the CPU/PCI/motherboard/SATA connector you want to plug it into. The PSU and cable might be a black box, but the output is always testable.
aidenn0 7 hours ago [-]
Couldn't you still fry a PSU if the cable assumed multiple common pins to the PSU, but the PSU had different voltages across those connectors?
The motherboard cables do all kinds of different scary crossovers so never separate them, though you'll probably never have an "extra" motherboard cable in the first place.
None of the other cables bridge pins on the PSU side, they "just" scramble the pins they're attached to at the other end.
koyote 8 hours ago [-]
I too have been burned by the BBOC, although not as badly as this:
I picked out a random short ethernet cable that looked nice (it was flat) to connect my wifi AP to my router.
It took me about a month to realize my 100mbit internet connection had dropped down to about ~85-90mbit, but more importantly, transferring files between a wifi client and the wired network was also only ~90mbit.
Turned out the cable was so bad that it only connected at 100mbit...
I have now gone the other way and I actually curate the BBOC:
All cables I get for 'free' with random appliances now go straight to the bin (unless they are specialised) and I only keep cables I specifically bought and know they adhere to a standard.
fabian2k 10 hours ago [-]
That's an expensive mistake to make, though frying your HDDs is usually a lot cheaper than frying your GPU.
It's seriously annoying that this is the case though. Unless you kept the cables in the original package or in a labelled container, you cannot safely use them again if you owned more than one modular PSU.
SmasherEpilepti 9 hours ago [-]
It wasn't actually very expensive in money, because I was still able to RMA the pair of fried drives, but it did cost me $30 in shipping, a month of waiting, a lost delivery via UPS, and tons of time dealing with customer support for both UPS and Seagate to actually get a second set of replacement drives.
On the bright side, the actual replacements that eventually got to me were both 2TB bigger than the originals. They didn't tell me about this, so I'm not sure if they silently upgraded me to apologize for the wait, it was an accident, or they happened to be out of stock and just grabbed the next size up.
goobatrooba 11 minutes ago [-]
You destroyed the drives by using an incompatible cable (I.e. clear user error) and they still sent you (upgraded) replacements? That is unusual.
CTDOCodebases 9 hours ago [-]
Before you fry a whole 12bay drive array and backplane let me tell you this:
6 pin EPS and 6 pin PCIe power cables are not the same. Even though the connector may fit they are not the same pinout.
samudrijan 9 hours ago [-]
Looks the same? Should be fine.
locust101 10 hours ago [-]
I had the same thing happen to me when I plugged in my massager charger into the blood pressure monitor and fried it
exe34 9 hours ago [-]
Oh for crying out loud, I've spent my life believing if it fits it's right. %$@&#!
rubidium 9 hours ago [-]
I hope you never have to work with serial D9 cables. The variation of pinouts for legacy equipment is massive! Pretty sure every theoretical variation became some standard.
exe34 1 hours ago [-]
Hah there was one on the 8088 I was allowed to play with as a child, but I only used the parallel port to switch on/off a motor via a relay.
all there. And after this post, I'll keep them even longer.
Often people don't realize there is only "downwards-compatibility", meaning later technologies can "tunnel" an "older" signal (such as DisplayPort being able to Tunnel DVI/HDMI) when using passive adapters, while the other way it's not possible.
EvanAnderson 15 hours ago [-]
I wish the old cables, gear, etc. I have squirreled-away stopped saving Customers' and friends' asses because I could feel good about getting rid of it.
We've been unspooling the stash of wood off-cuts, bits of copper pipe, and misc. broken or trash-picked parts from my late grandfather's workshop for the last few years. He always seemed to have materials at-hand to fix anything and, as a kid, I was in awe of that. Now I understand why.
I hope I can leave less stuff for my daughter to poke thru, but at the same time I want to be like my grandfather, seemingly being able to fix anything immediately.
stmw 13 hours ago [-]
It's what JIT (just-in-time) inventory and offshore manufacturing took away from us. Hold onto your spare parts.
wil421 11 hours ago [-]
My dad worked at Lockheed and in the 80s they joked they used JIC (just in case) manufacturing. They had so many parts without a clear reason as to why they created so many.
stmw 5 hours ago [-]
JIC! That's funny.
It may sound like inefficiency, but really it is an option on future flexibility. Just like the big box of cables.
michaelt 9 hours ago [-]
> I wish the old cables, gear, etc. I have squirreled-away stopped saving Customers' and friends' asses because I could feel good about getting rid of it.
What you've got to do is become more forgetful.
Ask not what a 17v power supply can do for your friends. Ask if you'll remember it and find it when that moment comes.
RajT88 4 hours ago [-]
I feel seen.
When my wife and I moved into a new house, my big box of cables got sorted into several smaller boxes of cables, and an "other" bin.
I also have a travel bag of meticulously packed USB cables of all kinds.
3 times in the last month, I produced exactly the right cable for helping her set up some older hardware at her office at her small business.
The kinds of cables lesser men would have thrown away long ago.
culi 21 minutes ago [-]
The delight of having one of those cables be useful is immeasurable. It doesn't even have to be for your own good. In fact, I bet if we made a site where everyone can catalog their collections and automatically match them up with neighbors that have that cable, people would be more than happy to share cables for free.
cgufus 19 minutes ago [-]
I often thought about that too. There's a similar thing for sharing tools in the neighborhood.
noisy_boy 23 minutes ago [-]
We moved a few months ago and it was so satisfying seeing the inventory of cables I had been saving for years getting used up. The cable-watermark in the box actually started noticably lowering. Nobody gave me the loud praise I deserved but it sure was satisfying saying "yeah I have the cable for it, here you go" with a distinct feeling of superiority.
shrubby 15 minutes ago [-]
I have the same. It has saved hundreds of dineros for me and my friends and even better, prevented those ending up in the bottomless trickle up coffers of the zillionaire.
1-more 11 hours ago [-]
In 2021 I cut the end off a USB cable to expose the power leads which I scotch taped to the power meter on my bike to charge it. I kept that cable. In 2024 I used it to add USB disconnects to the light strip I attached to the bottom of my son's crib, allowing me to keep the light strip intact when we lowered the base from the baby height to the toddler height. A week later we got rid of the strip because we really didn't need the light like that any more. Still, no regrets. This was my version of using every part of the buffalo.
goobatrooba 6 minutes ago [-]
While I like to improvise I'd never want to use a cut-off cable anywhere near a toddler. Whatever the savings or practical benefits, they just can't outweigh the risk of the toddler doing something that causes a shock, fire, ... Maybe for the best that you removed that light strip.
jimniels 8 hours ago [-]
waiting for the next piece of this story, where your toddler turns 13 and gets their first mp3 player, which doesn't ship with a charger and guess who still has 18 inches of cable left?
random3 15 hours ago [-]
You’re not serious about it if you only have one box
advisedwang 15 hours ago [-]
Challenge: come up with categories for the boxes such that every item has exactly one box that is correct for it.
I've got "USB", "AV" and "Networking & PC Accessories", which obviously has enormous overlap, but equally divides the cables I have pretty nicely.
intrasight 15 hours ago [-]
Funny this came up hn today. this week I did some organization of my cable boxes. I use banker boxes on a steel shelving unit. I put the cables and parts inappropriate boxes and labeled them and feel that my corner of the universe is a little bit better organized than before.
Mine is similar but I split audio and video since I have a lot of audio-specific stuff. "Video" only has the various monitor cable standards going back 20-odd years.
dgritsko 15 hours ago [-]
I think I've got the same three boxes. HDMI cables and adapters fall into the Venn diagram overlap of the last two IMO. You could also make a strong argument for USB also falling into "PC Accessories". But there's nothing quite as satisfying as having the _exactly right_ cable or adapter on hand to solve a problem. Makes it all worth it!
theamk 14 hours ago [-]
Easy! I put exclusions on my labels
"USB cables, standard"
"USB passive/special, except pigtails and USB->AV"
"AV, including USB-AV cables"
tiagod 8 hours ago [-]
I have USB, Generic Power, IEC, Network, Audio/Video, Misc
xcf_seetan 11 hours ago [-]
Audio, computer, electric!
hamdingers 10 hours ago [-]
Hey could you put these powered computer speakers away for me? :)
colechristensen 6 hours ago [-]
AV, Network, Data, Power (if it doesn't fit the first category, try the next)
If one of those buckets is too full, prepend it with something more specific
i.e. USB, Data instead of just Data
bakies 15 hours ago [-]
Those are my categories!
ramses0 11 hours ago [-]
"USB", "TV/HDMI", "Networking", "Every Audio Connector Known to Man", and the inimitable: "Plugs-to-Wall"
jameshart 9 hours ago [-]
We have the same. Do you know why the ‘every audio connector known to man’ box contain every audio connector known to man but yet never a stereo 1/8” headphone-jack to headphone-jack cable?
fragmede 3 hours ago [-]
don't know any audio engineers? If your bboc is simply a mishmash of things you've accumulated over the years, and not intelligently designed, it won't, but don't make the mistake of extrapolating from your own experience and thinking it applies to everybody.
embedding-shape 11 hours ago [-]
My boxes been sorted by "what does the cable carry", one power cables, one data, one video, one patch cables, then some are split out, like sound production related cables, one with balanced 1/4", one unbalanced, one MIDI... I think in total 8 moving boxes by now.
woozlewuzzle 3 hours ago [-]
Depends on how big that box is
pixl97 10 hours ago [-]
It's always a miniature war with my wife trying to optimize all my cables away and me trying to keep as many as possible.
dylan604 15 hours ago [-]
I have one for video cables, one for audio cables, one for computer gear. Does that make me serious our mildly interested?
wil421 11 hours ago [-]
Cable curious.
My categories are identical to yours. Home Depot had a sale on these stackable dewalt boxes that are much more cost effective for semi-junk stuff than Milwaukee pack outs.
RIMR 11 hours ago [-]
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.
VariousPrograms 15 hours ago [-]
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.
EvanAnderson 14 hours ago [-]
For me it's not the cost that bugs me when I don't have a part, but rather the disruption to my flow. If I can't get a project done all at once I'm much less likely to ever get it done.
mf2hd 10 hours ago [-]
No, this method does not work. I tried, got rid of all those stuff because why would I need it ever again. And of course a month later I needed that one stupid thing right there and then. And I remember throwing away... Not again, I keep at least one cable of each in a separate box to find immediately, the rest is stored, it is not asking for any money.
DANmode 4 hours ago [-]
You’re not replying to the comment.
If you’re using 20 year old hardware, okay - keep 20 year old wires and accessories.
Most are not.
Put an expiration date on your neuroticism. Old dirty stuff can literally consume you.
Ask me how I know!
js2 5 hours ago [-]
Yeah, what happens to me is I need a thing, go to Amazon to order it, see that I already bought it 4 years ago, spend 30 minutes trying to find it, then let out a big sigh and order it again.
Most recently: a USB to TTL serial adapter.
CommieBobDole 8 hours ago [-]
I have a bin of cables marked "Obsolete". A cable only goes in there if there's absolutely no possibility of it being used for any reason ever again.
I use cables from it once every few years.
embedding-shape 11 hours ago [-]
And whoever needs something else, I give you permission to ignore this fool and keep your box(es) of cables. I don't regret a single thing about my ~8 boxes of cables.
SkyPuncher 9 hours ago [-]
For me, the hardest part is actually figuring out what the cable is called in order to find a replacement.
DANmode 4 hours ago [-]
hardest part was
LocalH 10 hours ago [-]
Throwing away proprietary cables is a sin. Throwing away standard commodity USB cables is not so much
protocolture 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah its hard enough when you need a Mini USB cable. When you need the proprietary RS232 cable for an old piece of hardware, at short notice, that stings.
carlosjobim 9 hours ago [-]
Give them away to a thrift shop instead. Then you've helped somebody else who will find that cable in the thrift shop. So they can put it on ebay and sell it back to you when you need it two months later.
kingrolo 8 hours ago [-]
I 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 that or can tell me about the pop up local cable donation swap initiative I haven't heard of them that would be welcome.
culi 19 minutes ago [-]
Someone should make a noncommercial website that allows people to post their collection. I bet there's enough people out there willing to share their cables for free just for the delight of having one of their cables being useful to someone for some reason
Legend2440 5 hours ago [-]
>I know there's someone out there who could make use of them.
I wouldn't be so sure. I bet there's more cables out there than functioning equipment, especially for older standards like VGA or PS/2.
It's ok to throw out junk.
throwaway219450 6 hours ago [-]
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.
protocolture 2 hours ago [-]
IT Recyclers will at least sort them and resell them in bulk as raw materials. Sometimes. When they are allowed to.
colechristensen 6 hours ago [-]
things like old hdmi cables need to go, updated specs mean the old ones fundamentally don't work.
learn how and get the tools to strip wires and sell the metal for scrap when you have too much, do it right and better than recycling, you can sell it
numpad0 6 hours ago [-]
I think what nerds need to understand is that normal people hate accessories. Superheroes need no IV lines, they lose power when they are added and regain it when they are removed. They think throwing away cables and accessories make machines healthier.
So, the way it needs to be communicated is that they are necessary evil that help machines be happy. And also to allow special purpose tools and cables to be stored inside the machine if possible, so they don't psychologically present as excess decorations and/or gifts.
godelski 10 hours ago [-]
I put my cables in bags then in a box. I can't tell you how helpful the bags are. It only took me like an hour to sort the first time. But it's already saved me hours only a year later. Those 5 minutes of searching add up. Just fight the laziness and don't let entropy increase. It's *far* easier to stay organized than it is to organize
SchemaLoad 7 hours ago [-]
Also helps to cut down on your number of cables once you see you have 5 USB-B cables when at most you need 1. I ziplock bagged all of my cables and cut them down to one of each type. These days I throw out the included cable with devices immediately rather than throwing it in with all the others. Thankfully a lot of new devices don't include cables now so the wastage is cut down.
gr4viton2 24 minutes ago [-]
I do group them using one "type" per box too. However I do not use zip-bags, instead I use core of toilet rolls - suitable to add length labeling too.
idatum 1 hours ago [-]
Recently visited Seoul, Korea, and took the subway to Yongsan station and walked over to what is left of the Yongsan Electronics Market (building 21).
1) It still exists. Cool.
2) What's left: Nobody taking their boxes of cables away!
ElijahLynn 14 hours ago [-]
Clear Hefty Slider bags are perfect for this! I have my cable boxes (Hefty Hi-Rise) filled with these bags, USB -A to USB-C, USB -C to USB-C (then sub-bagged with 65w, 100w, 240w) and so on.
Point is, use clear bags so you can see inside, and Hefty makes the slider version. I get the gallon and half gallon bags for this, and then the quart size as well. This is the Marie Kondo technique and it's amazing for keeping all these cables which are always coming in handy!
I keep the duplicates, because you never know which color and length is going to be the perfect fit for the current need!
isodude 2 hours ago [-]
The rule: one cable per bag! At least in my case.
felixfurtak 11 hours ago [-]
Only one big box of cables! What an amateur.
You need at least 4. And another one for power supplies.
masfuerte 10 hours ago [-]
Yes. And it's not even a big box.
tikhonj 15 hours ago [-]
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
I have a few of those too. My laser cutter needs one. I've seen lots of "expensive equipment" use USB A-to-A cables, for some odd reason.
moritzwarhier 15 hours ago [-]
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" :)
I had one of those to charge a bicycle headlight. I gave it away with the bicycle, but in the span of time I had it, one visiting guest borrowed it to recharge a portable generic USB battery pack. So there you go, two product categories known to use that sort of cable!
VCFundedGenYer 10 hours ago [-]
Double-ended USB A cables were popular in the 2000s/early 2010s for powering external hard drives or USB DVD drives.
creaturemachine 14 hours ago [-]
I installed some HP slide-out rackmount keyboard/monitor units that used these as the host connection. This was back in the days when PS/2 was still around so they usually weren't used.
tom_ 8 hours ago [-]
I've got a 7 port USB 3.0 hub that connects with a double ended USB-A cable.
jameshart 9 hours ago [-]
Put a USB C to A adapter on each end and you’ve got yourself a perfectly serviceable USBC cable.
jauntywundrkind 15 hours ago [-]
Mine came from usb<->sata adapters.
1-more 11 hours ago [-]
mine had 2 male USB ends on one side and 1 on the other. It was to power a laptop hard disk drive from USB if one port couldn't provide enough power. Feels illegal. I bought it off eBay with a money order in like 2003.
majorchord 14 hours ago [-]
mine came from a USB charger spycam
toast0 15 hours ago [-]
> double-ended USB-A cable.
Decades ago, I purchased a usb external hard drive case with a usb-a for the connection to the computer. Returned that pretty quick because eww.
OroPla 10 hours ago [-]
Wait,.. you guys only have one big box of cables?
tolerance 9 hours ago [-]
For evidence that Bluesky is a long-term living facility operating as a social media platform...look no further than how their users employ the word "skeet" to refer to "post".
pigpop 5 hours ago [-]
I almost died from cringe when I hovered over the link and realized what he was talking about.
BeetleB 11 hours ago [-]
I'm terrified of not being able to find old USB cables.
My D2A converter I use to route TV audio to a small amplifier died. It was cheap, but decent. I wanted another cheap one. I had trouble finding any. Finally, I snagged a pair on Amazon/eBay, but it used ancient USB connections. Luckily, I had old USB cables, so I'm good. But what will I do if the USB cable stops working?
smw 10 hours ago [-]
What are ancient usb connections? Type A? B?
michaelt 9 hours ago [-]
How are you going to download photos from your USB Nikon camera to your USB iPod Photo if you don't even have a UC-E6 to 30-pin dock connector cable?
pdpi 10 hours ago [-]
Mini-B cables can be somewhat hard to find.
MisterTea 9 hours ago [-]
There was also the Micro-A which I found on some dev boards. I think the Arduino Due (Arm Cortex M3 chip) used one for the USB host port as well as an Atmel Arm uc board.
Also that weird, really small USB connector that was found on some early digital cameras. I think Kodak was a big user of it. Sorta looked like a narrower and taller version of the Mini-B. Maybe the Mini-AB but that doesn't look like it. I have one in my box at home.
Gigachad 9 hours ago [-]
Old digital cameras just used non standard usb shapes so they are almost impossible to find now.
MisterTea 9 hours ago [-]
Ah, they were proprietary then. I thought they were an early standard that lacked a 5th pin.
sokoloff 10 hours ago [-]
Since school started this year, I bought both my kids TI-84 plus CE calculators. Both were being sold cheap because “no charging cable” (uses a mini-B) while I had a dozen in a box.
I wish that happened a lot less as I have entirely too many old cables.
avhception 9 hours ago [-]
I hold on to my precious few mini-Bs. They also seem to have a tendency to break.
jttnr 15 hours ago [-]
My cable box is my retirement fund. Copper prices are rising, and scrap-metal dealers pay pretty well for it.
But jokes aside: last year I also sorted some out and took 10 kilos of household cables to the local scrap-metal dealer here in Germany and got €30 for them. Better than throwing them away.
ValdikSS 11 hours ago [-]
Do you have flea markets in DE? I'm pretty sure 10 kg of cables could be sold for more than €100 in a single day. Is it not common in DE?
bakies 15 hours ago [-]
My gold plated monster cables are going to make me a millionaire
jimniels 8 hours ago [-]
there’s a post-apocalyptic novel waiting to be written where civilization collapses and the cable hoarders sit on the thrones
isodude 2 hours ago [-]
I had an lightning cable connected to a charger, turns out the connector was a bit broken and it started to spark, in the sofa where the end was.
Luckily our fire alarm on four legs quickly alerted us.
Don't keep busted cables. It's not worth it.
BorisMelnik 15 hours ago [-]
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.
rickydroll 15 hours ago [-]
I try to keep only 3 or 4 of the same cable, and if one gets damaged, I throw it away after the fourth or fifth time I look at it and wonder if I can fix it.
lowken 8 hours ago [-]
I recently purged my cable box. I had 8 HDMI cables... 8. What do I need 8 HDMI cables for?
I tossed them in the garbage with a ton of other use less cables. I kept one HDMI cable (not 8) and a few odds and ends. I kept one rj45 Ethernet cable and tossed the rest. I even tossed my rj45 crimping tool kit. Why? Because I don't see the need to crimp Ethernet cables anytime soon and should the need arise I can buy a kit for $30.
So at the end my cable box when from being overflowing to half full.
Onto the next project.
edgarvaldes 8 hours ago [-]
I had four unused HDMI cables. One day, I needed to send a signal from my PC to my tv. I usually use Plex for convenience and the "resume where I left off" feature, but that day a certain update was acting up, so I decided to use a cable instead. Easy. The next day, I wanted to send a signal from my laptop to the tv downstairs (I still hadn't fixed the Plex issue) and pulled out the second cable because I needed a different length than the first one... but it turned out to be incompatible, so I ended up using the third one.
kiddico 8 hours ago [-]
I also did the "only keep one of each" purge, but that last part about throwing away a tool because you can just buy another one later is nuts to me. Yeah you could do that. You could also throw away all your cables and just buy them when you need another lol.
PorciiVorbesc 8 hours ago [-]
HDMI and Ethernet are comedies at this point, no need to hoard so many. The point is to not throw away the more rare/niche ones since getting one after will be hard and/or expensive.
jldugger 8 hours ago [-]
> What do I need 8 HDMI cables for
5 for five generations of consoles into the same TV
1 for the audio bar
1 for the hdmi switch to the tv
1 for a laptop when nothing else works
SchemaLoad 7 hours ago [-]
What TV do you have that has 8 HDMI inputs?
Dylan16807 2 hours ago [-]
They said there's a switch, so a bunch of those console are probably going through it.
HDBaseT 6 hours ago [-]
AV receiver maybe.
tengbretson 3 hours ago [-]
Obviously I'm going to keep the box, but the real question is how many hundreds of NEMA C13 cables should I keep?
__MatrixMan__ 15 hours ago [-]
I had four big plastic totes full of cables. I pared them down to just one recently. I'm 90% happy with the move. It's ok to let go sometimes.
ranger_danger 15 hours ago [-]
Agreed... the realization I had recently was that if I've got boxes that I haven't touched in years, then I won't really miss them as much as I think I will if I get rid of it.
squarefoot 8 hours ago [-]
I have surplus/military bare cables dating from the 1970s or so, extra shiny silver plated copper with PTFE jacket: a joy to solder, then more "normal" ones from the late 80s and 90s, then "old" modern ones, that is, power/audio/data cables usable with recent stuff. I'll never throw away any of them because unlike most crap they bundle with consumer devices today, they're made of real copper. Take a cheap cable bought today and chances are that it either sticks to a magnet, meaning it's copper plated steel or other crappy alloy, or it doesn't and it's super light which indicates it's made of aluminium; in all cases not good where power dissipation can be a problem or where resoldering may be necessary. Keep old cables!
inopinatus 5 hours ago [-]
I too live in the firm belief that my collection of DB13W3 cables will at some point prove essential to saving humanity from nanobot goo for which the shutdown codes are only stored in earth's last remaining SGI IRIS 4D Crimson.
This is also a good reason to keep your knowledge of MIPS assembler fresh, lest you have to type lots of it very quickly as the swarm approaches.
projproj 3 hours ago [-]
I always think the worst thing that can happen to a (mild) hoarder like myself is that one of the things I'm hoarding comes in handy. Using one hoarded thing justifies years' worth of more hoarding.
10 hours ago [-]
m000 10 hours ago [-]
Hey! It’s not just me! The other day, someone at work decided to throw away a large drawer worth of HDMI, DP, USB cables that I had neatly organized a couple of months ago. This was to make room for like 5 spare power strips that take up <20% of the drawer and while we had like 3 empty drawers in the cabinet. Needless to say, I was livid. Especially because I found out while looking for a USB cable to charge my mouse that we had at least x4 in the drawer.
Thank you for listening.
asciimov 9 hours ago [-]
I used to think this way, but now I know better.
My dad passed a few years back, this past year I spent a considerable amount of time helping my mom and sister tame all his junk. So much junk was tossed or donated, very little was kept and even less sold. Not wanting to burden my family with all of my junk I started working on my own hoard this summer. Letting go wasn't easy, but once it was done I felt less burdened by it.
And yes like clockwork a week after tossing it all I needed some random cable. I spent a couple of bucks for one at Walmart of all places, but Amazon and ebay would have had my back if that cable hadn't been there.
If you have a similar junk box, you have my permission to just throw it away. Don't look in it, don't worry about it, just toss it. You do not need to be carrying so much junk. You do not need 20 year old ethernet cables, 30 year old scsi and ide cables, or 40 year old audio cables. You can buy new ones, in new condition today, most of which are reasonably priced and wont produce random errors or noise due to internal faults.
tl;dr- You don't need it, toss it and do it today!
marcogarces 8 hours ago [-]
I use big drawers for "types" and ziplocks for within; i have a network drawer , a media one and a generic one that says "stuff that glues or grabs" (zip ties, tape, etc)
edgarvaldes 8 hours ago [-]
Same here. I also keep an inventory and labels for Box A, Box B, etc.
jnaina 5 hours ago [-]
over 30 years of cable collection. rare gems include apple SCSI DB25/CN50/HD50/HD68/HDI-30 cables, apple/NeXT ADB cables, apple localtalk dongles, atari SIO cables, centronics parallel cables, din-8 serial cables, hdi-45, apple adc video cables,DB13W3 video cable, dvi-d video cable, dms-59, firewire 400 and 800 cables, ipod 30-pin cable, ega db9 to vga db15, s-video cables, optical audio toslink cables, component video cables, SCART video cables, micro-dvi/mini-dvi, harddisk IDE/PATA cables, 10base2 BNC cables, miles of rj11, trrs and RCA cables, etc.
I think I've cleaned up my box of cables twice in the past and, inevitably, _the very next day_ I did so, I needed one of the cables I had gotten rid of. Never again.
itintheory 11 hours ago [-]
We have a local thrift store that sorts and stores the cables very nicely. 95% of the time I can find exactly what I need right away.
That doesn't mean I don't also have my big box of cables, but just offering an alternate strategy.
jimniels 8 hours ago [-]
good for them. essential infrastructure. pillars of a civil society.
johnhtodd 9 hours ago [-]
I will say that Vidmar, Lista, and Rousseau make thin drawer cabinets that work well for cables if you have graduated from "big box of cables" to "cabinets full of cables". Also, old map or blueprint drawers work well. Still requires obsessive coiling, but being able to see (semi-random access) all of them in a drawer all at once is a big speed improvement for searches.
jimniels 8 hours ago [-]
> if you have graduated from "big box of cables" to "cabinets full of cables"
I have much yet to learn, cable master :)
schmookeeg 14 hours ago [-]
Somewhere, deep in a storage tote, a UW SCSI cable I paid 50 bucks for at Fry's shows a glimmer of hope.
The trouble with old cables is after years they can become "tacky" or "melt" softer plastics they come into contact with. So storage is important.
nickt 5 hours ago [-]
Box. Amateur. Talk to me when you have a filing cabinet full of cables with bags labelled “SCSI”, “IEE-488 (Commodore)” and “DIN”.
At least my past self was good enough to bag and label.
karim79 8 hours ago [-]
This is so strange because I have a big box of cables. And I had a dream about it the other day. Which was more like a nightmare.
I think there was some point in the dream where I was going ape shit because the USB type C ones were missing or I couldn't find them and I was blaming [someone].
I'm not like this when awake FYI.
rodrodrod 15 hours ago [-]
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.
bluefirebrand 15 hours ago [-]
I'm pretty sure those are easy to find usb adapters for it you ever do need them in the future anyways.
mrkpdl 3 hours ago [-]
On the other hand, it feels great to no longer have a box of old cables...
fragmede 2 hours ago [-]
Yes. In a different version of the future, the bboc is replaced by next day amazon a universal adapter.
walrus01 10 hours ago [-]
You never know when you'll need a FireWire 400 cable or a charger cable for a handspring treo, I guess...
analog31 10 hours ago [-]
As an aside, learn to properly care for cables. There are several YouTube videos on this topic, typically from musicians. Most importantly for small molded cables, avoid sharp bends and stress on the wire near the ends. Just a loose coil is much better. And the “over under” method for long cables avoids getting them twisted up.
Havoc 6 hours ago [-]
USB has been a blessing in this regard. That dramatically reduced the scope of my cable salad.
I wish the power vs data ones were easier to tell apart though
dekhn 8 hours ago [-]
I 3D print cable rocks and mount them in my garage and then hang them in groups by type. I also get rid of every cable type I haven't used in 10 years because you can always just buy more of that cable.
lynndotpy 9 hours ago [-]
I organize mine into roughly three boxes by how common they are.
One for every-day cables (like USB C), one for the stranger cables (like USB-B 3), and one for the one-offs (like a Nintendo DS cable).
It's the easiest to actually keep organized and it's easy to find what I need.
jtbetz22 11 hours ago [-]
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.
sokoloff 10 hours ago [-]
My problem is I would feel entirely too curious to see what was in that ersatz time capsule I created a decade ago.
asdfman123 9 hours ago [-]
The proper Latin term for someone throwing away your big box of cables is cabula rasa.
ChrisMarshallNY 9 hours ago [-]
I'm a cable hoarder. I have cables for technologies that have been dead, for decades.
I need help.
flippingheck 1 hours ago [-]
> I need help.
Call SOS on your telegraph?
anotherevan 8 hours ago [-]
I have at least one box of old A/V cables and such sitting in my cupboard that I've been thinking I need to sort through and probably throw out.
Things like big, thick composite cables and extra long VGA cables.
Now… maybe not?
geocrasher 11 hours ago [-]
I see those boxes at estate sales regularly. And on FB marketplace for free or $5. Or sometimes somebody thinks they're sitting on a gold mine of technological history and tries to ask actual money for a box of 20 year old tangles.
Sometimes hoarding stuff pays off. It's usually just hoarding.
omgwtfbyobbq 10 hours ago [-]
It think it's both. The more stuff you have, the more you hoard, and the less you need to pay in terms of time/energy/money to get something you had in the past if you need it now/later, and on the flip side, you can be more minimalist, and will need to spend more time/energy/money to get the things you threw away/gave away/sold if you need them now/later.
It's mostly a resource/constraint time/space/money/effort problem.
jwilliams 7 hours ago [-]
You want to do task X and discover you need cable Y. You go to find cable Y missing, then discover a new one is $55 and 2 days delivery. Never again.
stavros 7 hours ago [-]
You buy it. You do task X, and go to store cable. You discover old cable Y exactly where you were going to store the new one.
axus 11 hours ago [-]
If you have children, at least one of them may become fascinated with retro hardware, and play with all of this stuff, reinstalling OS and connecting old drives. Once they grow past that phase, THEN you can bring everything to the e-Waste center :)
ares623 2 hours ago [-]
But make sure to let daddy sammy take away your cognition, that's less important.
juliie 10 hours ago [-]
I had to pull out a VGA cable to connect a screen to my server the other day. The motherboard has IPMI so I hadn't used that cable for years, possibly a decade now. I'll never throw it away.
comrade1234 15 hours ago [-]
Every now and then I look through the cables and take out the ones I no longer have hardware for. We have a cargo-tram every couple of months where you can bring things for disposal that don't go to normal garbage or recycling. Supposedly they recycle the cables but I suspect that means incinerating them (to generate electricity) and collecting the metal after.
yoggies_bro 11 hours ago [-]
1. it is easy to buy a cable and have it delivered to your home in 24 hours
2. You have to be able to remember -where- the box of cables is
3. box of cables takes up space and clutters your environment
Throw out the box of cables.
windowsrookie 11 hours ago [-]
1. I always know where my box of cables is, because it’s never moved from its location . 2. It takes up less than two shoeboxes of space, which is hardly anything in my home. 3. If I need the cable right now, I don’t have to wait 24 hours. 4. It costs me nothing to keep them.
anon7000 11 hours ago [-]
> it is easy to buy a cable and have it delivered to your home in 24 hours
* for now, in certain locations, from certain retailers
jsisto 15 hours ago [-]
Wife forced me to consolidate my boxes of cables to a single bin. I joke the retail price of the bin is hundreds of dollars
absynth 1 hours ago [-]
On the other hand, do you really need 50x VGA cables? yes? YES?! ok, as you were! Keep them in the ever growing box.
The idea of grouping by same or at least like is great for de-cluttering.
aidenn0 8 hours ago [-]
I seriously doubt that I'll ever need the 3 floppy-drive cables or 10 IDE cables that I have.
joeconway 15 hours ago [-]
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.
booty 15 hours ago [-]
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
joelrunyon 10 hours ago [-]
Pencils bags.
Bag the groups of cables by type and then put them in pencils bags and skip the untangling the next time you have to go hunt for one.
6 hours ago [-]
Ekaros 14 hours ago [-]
At some point I need to go through my USB-A-C cables and figures out which ones are actually USB 3. Which only have power and which are USB2... Thankfully I think I have tester that can do that.
Dylan16807 2 hours ago [-]
When you do that, just throw away the ones that only have power. If they're skimping that badly on the data wires, the power wires probably suck too. And it's not giving them a meaningful improvement in flexibility/weight.
lordnacho 9 hours ago [-]
This is how your kids end up with a SCART cable.
That box that you move every time you move house without opening it.
alaudet 8 hours ago [-]
I also have a big box of cables and now I no longer feel shame my brothers.
Night_Thastus 15 hours ago [-]
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).
qwerpy 15 hours ago [-]
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.
booty 13 hours ago [-]
Large 4mil ziploc style bags are extremely durable and are about $0.26 each in bulk on Amazon.
I very much recommend them. As a bonus, you can label them if desired. (Print a label out, or slap some tape on there and write on that, or just stick a sheet of paper inside the bag and write on that)
Dwedit 10 hours ago [-]
How about obsolete cables? IDE, RG59 coax, Cat 5, Composite video, etc...
agent86 10 hours ago [-]
Depends on if you reasonably expect to encounter one of those devices again and if the future cabling is backwards compatible.
Using your list I'd likely keep one IDE and comoposite video cable, but toss the RG59 and CAT5 because I could use a current RG6 or CAT6 cable in their place.
wvenable 5 hours ago [-]
You get into vintage computer collecting and regret all things that you tossed...
colechristensen 6 hours ago [-]
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.
motomatteo 3 hours ago [-]
group all, and use reusable zip ties. then it's something to be proud of
motomatteo 3 hours ago [-]
group plus reusable zip ties. then it's something to be proud of
octol 9 hours ago [-]
What if you have 7 big boxes of cables…?
cesaref 15 hours ago [-]
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...
jasomill 11 hours ago [-]
A few years ago I had to use a pair of high-voltage to low-voltage differential SCSI converters to connect an external DEC TK50 tape drive to my PC, because while I had plenty of HD68-to-HD68 cables, and HD68-to-Centronics cables, and a wide variety of ISA and PCI SCSI HBAs (and probably a couple EISA and Micro Channel boards if I looked hard enough, and I seem to recall finding a VL bus SCSI HBA on a shelf at work a few years ago), the only PCIe SCSI HBAs I have are multichannel cards with VHDCI ports, and the only VHDCI cables I have are VHDCI-to-VHDCI and VHDCI-to-HD68.
wewewedxfgdf 9 hours ago [-]
Tthe 2 days delivery is MUCH quicker to buy a new cable instead of searching for that cable in your many boxes of tech crap.
ocd 15 hours ago [-]
Rubbermaid Roughneck half size of resealable bags of cables.
beastman82 8 hours ago [-]
that's boxen in my case and I'm sure others
scosman 5 hours ago [-]
one box of cables?
those are rookie numbers
dogscatstrees 10 hours ago [-]
Today I learned another definition of skeet.
DANmode 3 hours ago [-]
They knew what they were doing.
computershit 10 hours ago [-]
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means...
malkia 10 hours ago [-]
10% of my garrage... okay, exxagerating - but at least 0.1% is the big box of cables of who the fuck knows what ... including several firewire, and really old nintendo, and some that I forgot what it was about...
ErroneousBosh 10 hours ago [-]
"Why yes I do have E1 twisted pair to E1 coax baluns, and 50 ohm BNC to 75 ohm BNC with matching stubs, and VGA to SCART cables, right here in my big box of cables!" <gestures at shed with bulging walls>
I need to get this under control.
christkv 11 hours ago [-]
Yesterday I found I still have a dozen firewire cables of different types but no devices to use them with. I put them in the possible recycle box.
platevoltage 11 hours ago [-]
Oh never. I have 2 giant boxes of them. The absolute worst thing ever is when you need something like a USB or HDMI cable, and you're forced to spend like 40 bucks at Best Buy because you're in a pinch.
jauntywundrkind 15 hours ago [-]
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 adapter to DC barrel jacks. I still have I dunno 70 power supplies, for laptops, gadgets and whatever. But at this point almost all my devices actually run on high efficiency gan usb-c power supplies. These once again follow the pattern: a usb-c female, then a pigtail (yay, better than fixed, like the HDMI), then the barrel jack.
mvanbaak 15 hours ago [-]
> 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
bityard 15 hours ago [-]
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.
jauntywundrkind 8 hours ago [-]
Usually it's a bit cheaper, from what I see. Especially if you buy 3-5.
Cost or no, like it because it means much much much less space. Instead of packing for a trip and wondering what set of cables I need, I have cables, and I have adapters. A couple short cheap cables and two longer good ones work for almost any purpose.
wileydragonfly 6 hours ago [-]
Throwing all that shit in a box and spending half an hour digging through it is half the fun. Your organization systems distress me.
martinpw 5 hours ago [-]
This post inspired me to go through my box of cables and I actually found a full HTC Vive headset with controllers in there buried several layers deep that I had completely forgotten about. I think it ended up there because it came with about a dozen cables so the cable box seemed like the natural place to dump it all.
Now I need to go through that box in detail to see what else might be lurking.
groby_b 8 hours ago [-]
Flip side? I have, in almost half a century of tech dabbling, never once needed a cable from that box that I couldn't have bought again.
I still keep _some_. A basic supply of standard cables "just in case", and clearly labeled things for "who the fuck needed to invent another connector" cases. (Looking at you, printer manufactures and WD hard drive enclosures)
But I strongly suggest tossing most of it. You need the space more than you need more cables.
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Rendered at 06:59:09 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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 also (mostly) put individual cables into baggies. You can get clear 2mil generic ziploc style baggies for super cheap on Amazon or elsewhere. $15 for 200 or something. Prvents tangles and way less effort than wrapping or tying them.
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.
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
Which of the cables are for PD? How much power? Can they do USB? If yes, at which of the dozen speeds? Is it a Thunderbolt cable? Which TB version? Is it certifiable or just blatantly unstable when running 40Gbit/s? Or is it some proprietary alt mode cable? And which ones are just spec breaking fire hazards if you tried PD with 240W through them? Do the cables have markings to tell you the capabilities? Are they even correct? Were they put on as a lie to upsell cheap USB 2.1 cables?
Bonus points if there are cables with some sort of “adapter” dangling in front (quotes because these are not a thing in USB). Double all your points if there is an USB-C to USB-C extension cord in the box.
It is certainly a box of mysteries.
I do not mean to invalidate your organizational scheme, but every time I am reminded of USB I have an irrational desire to rant about the flaws of USB-C.
No fasteners to wish for, or to fail.
Both ends of every cable are always next to each other for identification at a glance.
Different cables cannot tangle with each other in a box.
There are no axial twists imparted into the cable.
(Stage hands hate this technique, but this isn't stagecraft.)
As a bonus, you don't need to raid her hairbands.
Zip-ties, velcro, and twine (all suggested previously) also work well.
(I also hoard blank CD/DVD jewel cases. Who says technology ruins lives?)
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.
My USB-C charging cables are all 3' or longer, so they're visually distinct from the crappy little cables that come for free inside the package for various budget-priced gizmos.
My Thunderbolt/USB4 cables are labeled as such, and I am very confused that you are talking about Thunderbolt/USB4 cables so stiff that they cannot bend to fit into a container or bag.... I mean, mine are stiff but not that stiff. Plus these are expensive cables. Not sure I have any spares. Those are bought for purpose.
Charging is an interesting case, I actually deliberately use crappy cables for that too, depending on the charging time I need!
Re: stiffness: I mean I guess it depends, how big is your bag. I'm thinking like a freezer bag not a grocery bag. I could bend them to fit but then I'd probably mess them up.
Pro-tip, use a hole punch on a corner of the bag. That way, once zipped you can just squeeze it to get the air out.
Of course, I DID need one of them just a month or two later! But it was still a good exercise.
Now I have a whole drawer in a workbench devoted to cables sorted by type. What's surprising is how I NEVER have spare USB-C cables and ALWAYS have spare lightning cables. I mean, it SHOULDN'T be surprising, since more and more devices I own are now USB-C, but it's interesting that I expect my stock to always provide, and it never does -- for that cable type.
The frequency with which I have to buy new USB-C cables of varying lengths really illustrates the migration I've undergone. "Surely I have one I can just snag for the other car..." and I'm always proven wrong.
For example, I have a variety of USB C to USB C cables but they each have their own capabilities. Some support high transfer speeds, so I keep them around for connecting SSDs, while others are just USB 2 speeds so they are strictly for charging.
Another case is I have a very specific USB C to USB C cable that looks incredibly generic, but it is for connecting a screen tablet to a laptop because the manufacturer decided to make the port recessed, so only their cable fits. If this cable wasn't labeled as for a specific device, I would have donated it years ago.
It is some effort, for those who don't like to tinker with tech I can understand why they just shove them all into a box in the back of their closet. But I find that culling my cables at least makes me aware of what I have and don't have.
One other suggestion I have is just buying a longer cable than you think you need because eventually you'll have the need for it anyway. I have so many 3.5mm aux cables because I kept changing my desk set up and needing to buy longer and longer cables. If I had just bought the longest cable I could have at the time I would have saved myself some headache.
Another tip is adapters. Sometimes it's easier to just have cables of one type and a bunch of adapters for when you need them rather than having a ton of different cables for each possible scenario. I used to have a mix of RCA and 3.5mm cables but never had the right combination of what I needed at the time. Eventually I caved in and just bought a ton of adapters so I could standardize all the cables and use adapters as needed. Same with USB C cables.
This only works with cables that bend easily. For something stiff/sensitive like high speed USB4 I found it more problematic than helpful.
I didn’t get into my organizational techniques, but agree with your take! Ziploc bags + a sharpie is exactly how I do it.
https://imgur.com/JMUIcDY
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.
Please god, no more zip ties. Use double sided Velcro strap. You can buy it in a roll and cut to length. Reuse it all you want. Join multiple shorter lengths to make a longer one. Just please don't make me cut another god damn zip tie off a bundled cord. I deal with enough zip tie bondage fetishists at work.
Back many years when I was touring with bands, at the end of the night you'd see all the lighting crew walking around the stage coiling the long cables, with one end trailing after them, to make sure the twists were correct. That was much more useful than generic over-under for all cables.
over-under has its place, but I don't use it everywhere.
Do you mean micro-USB-B? Full size (and mini) USB-B cables (comparatively) built like tanks.
Even though it's annoying, I understand the design tradeoff. You definitely would rather your (replaceable) cable get damaged than the port it's plugged into.
USB-A to micro-B cables, and the connection is tetchy beyond belief about which ones it will accept and which it won't, either with or without the theoretically-unnecessary-for-this-printer power wire blocker. I can see no rhyme or reason to it but now I have a cable that has a dot painted on it...
> 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 here: https://silicagelpackets.com/aluminized-and-clear-moisture-b...
I picked up some resealable, aluminized bags and they've lasted for years. I also purchased fistfuls of silica gel packets, and I toss one into each bag when I seal it up.
I'm not sure if organizing "by cable type" would make sense to me, when there are adapters and dongles involved. Some of these baggies have been labeled by the central device, e.g. "All ThinkPad accessories are in here".
Also, for cable organizing, I've ordered rolls of plain Velcro strips: https://www.amazon.com/VELCRO-Brand-VEL-30765-AMS-Self-Gripp...
You can just cut these to the desired length and wrap them around your cables, for routing or bundling. They are, of course, reusable. I cut little notches in them so that they stay locked to each cable. You could get them in rainbow colors, but I like the white rolls so that I can write on them with a Sharpie.
Keep in mind that not everything stores optimally at very low humidity.
I was surprised to learn (from a recent thread here) that books will degrade more quickly if they are kept completely dry.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QH2NVM1
Yeah. I do the same
I used to just have a generic big tub with all the generic cables and wires. Some were nicely wrapped up, others often got themselves into a giant tangled mess. I could never find anything. I got a bunch of small/medium sized plastic bins with lids for all the generic stuff. An old labeler quickly made them "USB cables", "A/V Cables", "DC Power Adapters", "AC Power Cables", "Coax Cables"...now it takes me two seconds to find any particular random cable.
My first thought was "awesome, what project can I start that uses ten of those cables?"
I didn't know this; I had foolishly assumed that SATA power connectors were standardized on both ends.
(I'm rarely smart and have a second big box of modular PSU cables that I maybe ought to get rid of.)
They're standardized on the device side, but not the PSU side. So always check pinout before you make the very reasonable assumption that if it fits it works
Especially if the "manufacturer" is just a reseller.
The motherboard cables do all kinds of different scary crossovers so never separate them, though you'll probably never have an "extra" motherboard cable in the first place.
None of the other cables bridge pins on the PSU side, they "just" scramble the pins they're attached to at the other end.
I picked out a random short ethernet cable that looked nice (it was flat) to connect my wifi AP to my router.
It took me about a month to realize my 100mbit internet connection had dropped down to about ~85-90mbit, but more importantly, transferring files between a wifi client and the wired network was also only ~90mbit.
Turned out the cable was so bad that it only connected at 100mbit...
I have now gone the other way and I actually curate the BBOC: All cables I get for 'free' with random appliances now go straight to the bin (unless they are specialised) and I only keep cables I specifically bought and know they adhere to a standard.
It's seriously annoying that this is the case though. Unless you kept the cables in the original package or in a labelled container, you cannot safely use them again if you owned more than one modular PSU.
On the bright side, the actual replacements that eventually got to me were both 2TB bigger than the originals. They didn't tell me about this, so I'm not sure if they silently upgraded me to apologize for the wait, it was an accident, or they happened to be out of stock and just grabbed the next size up.
6 pin EPS and 6 pin PCIe power cables are not the same. Even though the connector may fit they are not the same pinout.
Often people don't realize there is only "downwards-compatibility", meaning later technologies can "tunnel" an "older" signal (such as DisplayPort being able to Tunnel DVI/HDMI) when using passive adapters, while the other way it's not possible.
We've been unspooling the stash of wood off-cuts, bits of copper pipe, and misc. broken or trash-picked parts from my late grandfather's workshop for the last few years. He always seemed to have materials at-hand to fix anything and, as a kid, I was in awe of that. Now I understand why.
I hope I can leave less stuff for my daughter to poke thru, but at the same time I want to be like my grandfather, seemingly being able to fix anything immediately.
What you've got to do is become more forgetful.
Ask not what a 17v power supply can do for your friends. Ask if you'll remember it and find it when that moment comes.
When my wife and I moved into a new house, my big box of cables got sorted into several smaller boxes of cables, and an "other" bin.
I also have a travel bag of meticulously packed USB cables of all kinds.
3 times in the last month, I produced exactly the right cable for helping her set up some older hardware at her office at her small business.
The kinds of cables lesser men would have thrown away long ago.
I've got "USB", "AV" and "Networking & PC Accessories", which obviously has enormous overlap, but equally divides the cables I have pretty nicely.
Mine is similar but I split audio and video since I have a lot of audio-specific stuff. "Video" only has the various monitor cable standards going back 20-odd years.
"USB cables, standard"
"USB passive/special, except pigtails and USB->AV"
"AV, including USB-AV cables"
If one of those buckets is too full, prepend it with something more specific
i.e. USB, Data instead of just Data
My categories are identical to yours. Home Depot had a sale on these stackable dewalt boxes that are much more cost effective for semi-junk stuff than Milwaukee pack outs.
If you’re using 20 year old hardware, okay - keep 20 year old wires and accessories.
Most are not.
Put an expiration date on your neuroticism. Old dirty stuff can literally consume you.
Ask me how I know!
Most recently: a USB to TTL serial adapter.
I use cables from it once every few years.
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 that or can tell me about the pop up local cable donation swap initiative I haven't heard of them that would be welcome.
I wouldn't be so sure. I bet there's more cables out there than functioning equipment, especially for older standards like VGA or PS/2.
It's ok to throw out junk.
learn how and get the tools to strip wires and sell the metal for scrap when you have too much, do it right and better than recycling, you can sell it
So, the way it needs to be communicated is that they are necessary evil that help machines be happy. And also to allow special purpose tools and cables to be stored inside the machine if possible, so they don't psychologically present as excess decorations and/or gifts.
1) It still exists. Cool. 2) What's left: Nobody taking their boxes of cables away!
Point is, use clear bags so you can see inside, and Hefty makes the slider version. I get the gallon and half gallon bags for this, and then the quart size as well. This is the Marie Kondo technique and it's amazing for keeping all these cables which are always coming in handy!
I keep the duplicates, because you never know which color and length is going to be the perfect fit for the current need!
You need at least 4. And another one for power supplies.
Getting rid of almost 10 different proprietary charging cables for pre-smart phones and some old laptops felt great though :P
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/444287
Decades ago, I purchased a usb external hard drive case with a usb-a for the connection to the computer. Returned that pretty quick because eww.
My D2A converter I use to route TV audio to a small amplifier died. It was cheap, but decent. I wanted another cheap one. I had trouble finding any. Finally, I snagged a pair on Amazon/eBay, but it used ancient USB connections. Luckily, I had old USB cables, so I'm good. But what will I do if the USB cable stops working?
Also that weird, really small USB connector that was found on some early digital cameras. I think Kodak was a big user of it. Sorta looked like a narrower and taller version of the Mini-B. Maybe the Mini-AB but that doesn't look like it. I have one in my box at home.
I wish that happened a lot less as I have entirely too many old cables.
Luckily our fire alarm on four legs quickly alerted us.
Don't keep busted cables. It's not worth it.
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.
I tossed them in the garbage with a ton of other use less cables. I kept one HDMI cable (not 8) and a few odds and ends. I kept one rj45 Ethernet cable and tossed the rest. I even tossed my rj45 crimping tool kit. Why? Because I don't see the need to crimp Ethernet cables anytime soon and should the need arise I can buy a kit for $30.
So at the end my cable box when from being overflowing to half full.
Onto the next project.
5 for five generations of consoles into the same TV
1 for the audio bar
1 for the hdmi switch to the tv
1 for a laptop when nothing else works
This is also a good reason to keep your knowledge of MIPS assembler fresh, lest you have to type lots of it very quickly as the swarm approaches.
Thank you for listening.
My dad passed a few years back, this past year I spent a considerable amount of time helping my mom and sister tame all his junk. So much junk was tossed or donated, very little was kept and even less sold. Not wanting to burden my family with all of my junk I started working on my own hoard this summer. Letting go wasn't easy, but once it was done I felt less burdened by it.
And yes like clockwork a week after tossing it all I needed some random cable. I spent a couple of bucks for one at Walmart of all places, but Amazon and ebay would have had my back if that cable hadn't been there.
If you have a similar junk box, you have my permission to just throw it away. Don't look in it, don't worry about it, just toss it. You do not need to be carrying so much junk. You do not need 20 year old ethernet cables, 30 year old scsi and ide cables, or 40 year old audio cables. You can buy new ones, in new condition today, most of which are reasonably priced and wont produce random errors or noise due to internal faults.
tl;dr- You don't need it, toss it and do it today!
All bagged up using ziplock bags and labelled.
Never know when I might need them again...
That doesn't mean I don't also have my big box of cables, but just offering an alternate strategy.
I have much yet to learn, cable master :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6wZUV1t1y0
At least my past self was good enough to bag and label.
I think there was some point in the dream where I was going ape shit because the USB type C ones were missing or I couldn't find them and I was blaming [someone].
I'm not like this when awake FYI.
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 wish the power vs data ones were easier to tell apart though
One for every-day cables (like USB C), one for the stranger cables (like USB-B 3), and one for the one-offs (like a Nintendo DS cable).
It's the easiest to actually keep organized and it's easy to find what I need.
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.
I need help.
Call SOS on your telegraph?
Things like big, thick composite cables and extra long VGA cables.
Now… maybe not?
Sometimes hoarding stuff pays off. It's usually just hoarding.
It's mostly a resource/constraint time/space/money/effort problem.
Throw out the box of cables.
* for now, in certain locations, from certain retailers
The idea of grouping by same or at least like is great for de-cluttering.
IM/FWIW: I personally have found 4mil ziploc-style bags to be pretty close to indestructible. They're like thick evidence locker bags
Bag the groups of cables by type and then put them in pencils bags and skip the untangling the next time you have to go hunt for one.
That box that you move every time you move house without opening it.
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.
I very much recommend them. As a bonus, you can label them if desired. (Print a label out, or slap some tape on there and write on that, or just stick a sheet of paper inside the bag and write on that)
Using your list I'd likely keep one IDE and comoposite video cable, but toss the RG59 and CAT5 because I could use a current RG6 or CAT6 cable in their place.
those are rookie numbers
I need to get this under control.
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 adapter to DC barrel jacks. I still have I dunno 70 power supplies, for laptops, gadgets and whatever. But at this point almost all my devices actually run on high efficiency gan usb-c power supplies. These once again follow the pattern: a usb-c female, then a pigtail (yay, better than fixed, like the HDMI), then the barrel jack.
And now you have a bunch of boxes with adapters ;P
Cost or no, like it because it means much much much less space. Instead of packing for a trip and wondering what set of cables I need, I have cables, and I have adapters. A couple short cheap cables and two longer good ones work for almost any purpose.
Now I need to go through that box in detail to see what else might be lurking.
I still keep _some_. A basic supply of standard cables "just in case", and clearly labeled things for "who the fuck needed to invent another connector" cases. (Looking at you, printer manufactures and WD hard drive enclosures)
But I strongly suggest tossing most of it. You need the space more than you need more cables.