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
You could cut the heatshrink tube, wrap it around the cable and then secure it with transparent tape. It would slide around but at least it wouldn't leave residue on the cable.
Maybe clip-on cable markers like this? [1] Easy to 3D print if you're so inclined.
[1] https://uk.farnell.com/multicomp-pro/pb-250-sm0c/cable-marke...
Visually, if it's something I'm going to be staring at on a daily basis, I like this much better than having tags hanging off of the cable. Tip: consider white-on-black labels.
The labels have been plenty durable in my experience, but if you need extra durability, you could probably just brush some lacquer over it with a Q-tip.
One big differentiator between various Brother models that's not immediately obvious is the tape sizes they accept. The cheaper models don't accept the fatter 24mm/1" labels, gotta step up to the $99ish models for that.
Obviously hell if you need to remove it, but we're talking about permanent labels. If I need to change a label I just put on a fresh layer of tape.
I would not trust or even leave any kind of tape for long term application myself. There's always something better.
This follows (at least my local) electrical code--it's quite robust. I have 40 year old electrical conduit that has tape applied like this and there's no movement, no fraying, no stickiness.
Note to others: that tester board looks fairly passive, i.e. I don't see (mention of) a microcontroller to talk to the chip that high-powered cables must have. So I guess it's somewhat limited in the number of things it can check?
As far as I know the marker chips is mostly to tell the devices to not abuse the cable.
Sometimes it even shows USB-C connectors that are only wired for one orientation!
[0] https://treedix.com/products/treedix-usb-cable-tester-usb-c-...
I also have preferences between my cables by the quality and aesthetic, I prefer some over others because they look or feel nicer even if in testing they contain the same conductors, but that's just ... me.
I currently have 3 such cables connected to my work laptop each sending 4K/60Hz video to each of my 3 x 4k monitors, audio to my soundbar and one of them is powering the laptop at 90W and sending my keyboard, mouse and webcam inputs back.
You can almost always tell the second it's in your hand; in order to do the high throughput stuff, 20Gb, 40Gb etc, the wire is much thicker and stiffer, it needs conductors for all of those contacts. Ive never counted but it's something like 20 of them vs 4 in a standard cable.
Of course always C to C; the A connectors with the extra contacts in between the normal USB 2 ones still aren't enough.
the A connectors with the extra contacts in
between the normal USB 2 ones still aren't enough.
[0] https://treedix.com/products/treedix-usb-cable-tester-usb-c-...
Makes it super easy to find, say, a data microUSB (blue, orange) for the Audiomoth) or a simple charging microUSB (red, orange) for the old blood pressure cuff).
> 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.
I understand the theoretical concerns here, but it feels like an overkill in real world situations.
If I do not own a scanning electron microscope, and if I cannot pair that microscope with comparable images of the circuitry when it was 100% healthy, I really wouldn't be able to tell ya the root cause of malfunction in SODIMMs, SSDs, mainboards, or sdcards or smart-cables. ESD is a silent and invisible killer of electronics. Prevention is its best cure, IMHO.
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.
My first thought was "awesome, what project can I start that uses ten of those cables?"
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
The sounds hard
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.
There are only a couple of places where I need the fancier cables that can carry video and have super high xfer speeds. Those don't move around because they're connected to monitors and external hard drives and usually come labeled USB4/Thunderbolt from the factory anyway.
The rest of my USB cables are just rando charging cables... attached to various chargers sticking out of various outlets around my house. No data functionality required and I think iPhone and Android both warn you now if you're plugged into a slow charger.... so I don't really need to differentiate these...
> 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.
I guess maybe it is a bit of work in an absolute sense. But, it requires basically zero brainpower. I just sorted and bagged them all up when I was watching a game on TV or something. So it didn't really feel like work lmao
Don’t ever let anyone take away your wildly overengineered cable shrine.
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.
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.)
Longer cables can also work but it kind of takes more space to get it done. Like, a 30-meter extension cord or similar is completely do-able, but it's useful to be able to walk around while it is happening. If the cable is both very long and very heavy, then it's a great workout for all kinds of muscle groups that may have been forgotten about. :)
But again, it's quick for the lengths we usually use in PC and home AV spaces. Or at least becomes quick with enough repetition: My hands seem to know how to do it on their own without me really looking or even thinking about it, and that frees my other resources up enough that I can visually plan my next (unrelated) move while the first is still in motion.
Multiple cables of about the same length can be wrapped together like this. A stereo pair of RCA interconnects, or the same 3 cables that always get used with a laptop, can stay grouped together and never become separated in storage.
It also works on laptop cables with a power brick in the middle.
And it's nice to the cables. Inherently avoiding axial twists is key here and the process also tends to help remove minor twists that showed up while the cable was in-use. It does produce periodic bends, and those bends always happen at the same places, and that repeated deformation does promote stress fractures at very predictable places.
But cables generally survive thousands of iterations of this over the span of decades, and decades is good enough. :)
---
Stage hands, meanwhile: There's reasons they hate the double-double technique, above. Their cables can be very long, there can be literal tons of them, and speed is a very important factor.
So they use a very specific coiling technique called over-under that seems impossible to describe with written language alone. It does put axial twist into the cable but those twists alternate and average to 0 instead of accumulating or multiplying (like elbow-wrapping can do[1]).
Over-under always requires the coil and cable ends to be tied up together before storage. That's often accomplished with an appropriate length of stout string or even rope that is permanently tied to one end (nothing to lose), but velcro can work too.
It's a solid technique. When done right, it allows fast deployment: Untie it, hang onto one end, and the rest can be literally thrown across a stage or whatever. Since the twist averages to 0, it tends to unwind neatly as it flies and lay flat when it lands.
And, of course: It stows well. Cables wrapped over-under can be tossed into a bag or a trunk or hung on hooks or whatever; they don't tangle.
It's probably overkill for the big box of mostly-short cables at home, but it's also worth understanding for the longer stuff we also use.
[1]: Elbow-wrapping and other very common methods that aren't unwrapped exactly oppositely of how they were wrapped up to begin (or provide some other mechanism to manage twist) with are great ways to put permanent axial twists into a cable. It is the entire reason why the long extension cords hanging in so many home garages and work environments alike (and especially on commercial vacuum cleaners[2]) wind up looking like coil springs even after being stretched out flat in an open space. Friends don't let friends elbow-wrap cables.
[2]: And that's also why residential vacuum cleaners usually have a large number of ridges running down the length of them.
The usual storage method has the user winding the cable around hooks on the side of the machine, and the usual deployment method involves rotating one of those hooks and liberating the entire coil of cable at once. This tends to promote axial twist.
But! The ridges enhance rotational friction. So as the ridged cable slides through the user's hand as they wind it back up onto the side of the machine after use, the ridges help those twists to be pushed down the line to the far end where the plug is. And since that end is loose at that time, it's free to rotate and alleviate twist. This happens automatically as the user winds up the cable and that's a pretty good trick. :) (I have no idea why commercial machines use smooth cable.)
It took a while, but I learned the over-under technique. It isn't hard at all and works well, but I have no clue who to describe it in text. Come over to my house and I'll be glad to teach you on a real cord - it won't take long. (I did learn it online not in person so I'm sure there are good instructions out there, I don't know which are good, and there are a lot of bad ones)
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 didn’t get into my organizational techniques, but agree with your take! Ziploc bags + a sharpie is exactly how I do it.
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.
Yeah. I do the same
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.
This doesn't work for everything: audio cables do not evolve much, nor do remote cables for DSLRs; but in general it's reasonably effective.
Somehow, after decades of careful curation, the cable I need is always missing!
There is some unfortunate crossover regarding where things belong because some USB are for power, some are for A/V etc, others or data...
What I realised, when going through these boxes was two things; it would cost a fortune to replace all of the cables in them, I wouldn't be surprised if replacement cost ran into the low thousands of £££ (should they be on my home insurance?!) and secondly; I'm no longer indecisive about what to do with a frayed or otherwise non-ideal cable, it goes straight in the bin; I used to retain the "nicer" ones and solder new connectors if the microUSB had worn out, or the cable was damaged near the end, that got much harder with USB-C unless I'm going for a simple +/-/D+/D-, so I just don't bother.
As for how often they're used; the USB box comes out almost daily, sometimes several times a day, if I'm charging things in my home office, or connecting something that isn't permanently plugged at my desk, I put the cables back away when I'm done. Power comes out every few weeks, and "networking" only when I need to reorganise things in the network cabinet/server rack.
For USB, the "final form" would be to create a labelling system so I can tell at a glance what each one supports, because as it stands I have to pull out my little LED cable tester thing and see how many light up to know if it'll do DP or high power charging etc.
You can keep it in the same box!
Storing stuff in individual boxes takes up too much space. The transparent bags can just go into a box and it's easy to just browse through. Nothing gets entangled.
I try not to overfill them if possible, much easier to see what's inside.
(Unfortunately, not kidding.)
Negative. I might need them all some day.
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.