[ncolug] Spare Patch Cable Management
- From: Chuck <cstickelman@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: NCOLUG <ncolug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:06:46 -0400
Howdy.
Are you like me in that you have a collection of spare patch cables
floating around? I have tried to get a handle on my cables for several
years. At first I just coiled my cables up and tossed them in a tub.
But the tub would always end up in the basement among a bunch of other
tubs, so when I needed a cable I'd have to go down to the basement and
sort through the tubs to find the right one, and then I'd have to dig
through the mess of cables that magically became entwined while in the
tub. I tried putting the coiled cables in zip-lock baggies, but the
largest ones wouldn't fit.
Fortunately, I think I've finally come up with a winning idea, and I
wanted to share it with you all.
First, I have classified my cables as either "short" or "long" and I
deal with them differently. For me a long cable is one that is > 2
meters, all others are short. The thing to note here is that my cut-off
for long vs. short is not arbitrary; it was chosen for a particular
reason, that I will came back to in a moment.
I have found that I typically use shorter patch cables more frequently
than long ones, so I want them to be available. Also want to minimize
tangling and I want to be able to visually distinguish cables by type --
coax vs. Ethernet vs. USB -- and I want to get an idea about how long
they are without a bunch of fussing around. In order to meet these
goals I've concluded that the cables need to be hanging vertically. But
hanging from what? Well that's where my first bit of inspiration comes
in. I went to a local hardware store and picked up 6 small compression
springs, and then dug around in my garage and found a small board and
some clips. About 20 minutes later I had a small wall-mountable
solution.
I then drilled a couple of small holes in my office closet and used
those little plastic insert dodads to screw it to the wall and started
hanging cables from it, with the cables hanging down, and tied with hook
& loop wire ties.
The middle two springs are now full of various USB cables, which has me
thinking that I didn't build this big enough. I may make another one
and put it on the other side of the closet...
But that's how I am now storing my patch cables that are < 2meters long.
Note: DO NOT use anything like this for fiber optic cables, as the
springs do pinch the cable and you could end-up crushing the fiber.
For cables that are longer than 2 meters, I lay the cable out next to a
tape measure and use a sharpie to mark it every meter. I then coil the
cable up so that the circumference of the coil is 1 meter long. This is
quite easy as all you need to do is to line up the sharpie marks. I
then use 3 small pieces of black electrician's tape evenly spaced around
the coil to help it retain it's shape. Now I can tell how long a cable
is just by counting the number of loops in each coil.
That's it. I now have a small stack of coils for my long patch cables
and a couple of bundles of shorter ones hanging in my office closet.
I'll send pictures in follow-up emails.
I hope someone finds this useful.
Chuck
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