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Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
- christkv 27d agoYesterday 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.
- 1a527dd5 27d agoEmpty toilet rolls. That way I can see the connectors and quickly find what cable I need.
- random3 28d agoYou’re not serious about it if you only have one box
- dylan604 28d agoI have one for video cables, one for audio cables, one for computer gear. Does that make me serious our mildly interested?
- wil421 27d agoCable 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.
- advisedwang 28d agoChallenge: 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.
- dgritsko 28d agoI 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!
- intrasight 28d agoFunny 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.
- bakies 28d agoThose are my categories!
- ramses0 27d ago"USB", "TV/HDMI", "Networking", "Every Audio Connector Known to Man", and the inimitable: "Plugs-to-Wall"
- jameshart 27d agoWe 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 27d agodon'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.
- RIMR 27d agoFor 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.
- ssl-3 27d agoJust begin. You don't need an inventory. Just start by dividing them into piles on the floor, organized by role. The biggest piles can get further subdivided into more-specialized roles. There will be piles that consist of memorable cables that have interfaces you haven't used in years. Segregate these unicorns; they'll be handled with special care later on. After that, you've got a broad selection of current-vintage stuff that is in active use -- all laid out before you. So just spend a few minutes to pick out a few nice examples from each remaining pile. A few cat5-ish cables of various lengths. Some AV interconnects of different descriptions. A few universal power cables: IEC, figure-8, and Mickey Mouse. Pick out the very best of the USB cables, and of the SATA cables, and whatever else you're making use of in 2026. Wrap each of those selections up neatly and put them in appropriately-small boxes. Label each box by role. Put each of these boxes away somewhere that is both out of the way, and able to be quickly returned to later. That was easy. The remaining piles on the floor are just scrap. Make a plan to scrap them and package them appropriately. Put that package near the front door. --- Now we get to the really fun part. All those precious historic artifacts that were carefully isolated before? It's time to sort those. Who knows when a 24-pin dot matrix printer could turn up that you need a DB-25 to Centronics cable for testing with, or you might find a use for the 15-pin PC joystick splitter? That PSX controller extension was hard to find even when it was new. It's all very important stuff with very specific roles. It's not like any of these things are being made in factories every day anymore. And it all has history. So take a photo of this amazing collection of vintage cabling, and then package it all with the reverence and care that it deserves. After that, simply put that package near the front door with all of the other scrap cabling. Nothin' to it.
- embedding-shape 27d agoMy 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.
- pixl97 27d agoIt's always a miniature war with my wife trying to optimize all my cables away and me trying to keep as many as possible.
- woozlewuzzle 27d agoDepends on how big that box is
- ocd 28d agoRubbermaid Roughneck half size of resealable bags of cables.
- rodrodrod 28d agoI 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 27d agoI'm pretty sure those are easy to find usb adapters for it you ever do need them in the future anyways.
- Night_Thastus 28d agoI 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 28d agoThat'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-organizer-drawer-storage-cable-bo 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 27d agoLarge 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)
- tikhonj 28d agoIn 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
- MrDOS 28d agoI 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!
- sanj 28d agoThis came with a double-ended USB-A for charging: https://www.rei.com/product/248291/biolite-luci-original-clear-20-inflatable-solar-lantern https://www.rei.com/product/248291/biolite-luci-original-cle...
- jauntywundrkind 28d agoMine came from usb<->sata adapters.
- 1-more 27d agomine 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.
- toast0 28d 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.
- kps 28d agoThere are also cables that look exactly like a double-ended USB-A cable but aren't. https://ftdichip.com/products/usb-nmc-2-5m/ https://ftdichip.com/products/usb-nmc-2-5m/
- __MatrixMan__ 28d agoI 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 28d agoAgreed... 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.
- jsisto 28d agoWife forced me to consolidate my boxes of cables to a single bin. I joke the retail price of the bin is hundreds of dollars
- EvanAnderson 28d agoI 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 27d agoIt's what JIT (just-in-time) inventory and offshore manufacturing took away from us. Hold onto your spare parts.
- wil421 27d agoMy 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 27d agoJIC! 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 27d 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.
- bruce343434 27d agoAlternatively build a searchable inventory app with claude
- comrade1234 28d agoEvery 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.
- 0utcast 28d ago[dead]
- jttnr 28d agoMy 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.
- bakies 28d agoMy gold plated monster cables are going to make me a millionaire
- jimniels 27d agothere’s a post-apocalyptic novel waiting to be written where civilization collapses and the cable hoarders sit on the thrones
- ValdikSS 27d agoDo 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?
- rickydroll 28d agoI 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.
- joeconway 28d agodo 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 28d agoGrouping 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
- jauntywundrkind 28d agoI 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 28d 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 27d agoYou'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 27d agoUsually 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.
- booty 28d agoKey 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.
- bityard 28d agoYeah, 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.
- joshstrange 27d agoThis 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.
- cesaref 27d agoHow 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 27d agoA 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.
- VariousPrograms 27d agoWhoever 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 27d agoFor 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.
- embedding-shape 27d agoAnd 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.
- mf2hd 27d agoNo, 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.
- js2 27d agoYeah, 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.
- DANmode 27d agoYou’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!
- BorisMelnik 27d agoI 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.
- schmookeeg 27d agoSomewhere, deep in a storage tote, a UW SCSI cable I paid 50 bucks for at Fry's shows a glimmer of hope.
- Ekaros 27d agoAt 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 27d agoWhen 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.
- ElijahLynn 27d agoClear 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 27d agoThe rule: one cable per bag! At least in my case.
- nudgeee 27d agoReminds me of this Onion classic: https://theonion.com/jumbled-nest-of-cords-makes-move-to-third-new-apartment-1819592125/ https://theonion.com/jumbled-nest-of-cords-makes-move-to-thi...
- theturtle 27d ago[dead]
- 1-more 27d agoIn 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.
- jimniels 27d agowaiting 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?
- goobatrooba 27d agoWhile 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.
- GJim 27d agoIf you are worried about 5 Volt electric shocks (!), I presume 'electromagnetic hypersensitivity' is also something you worry about?
- mitxela 27d agoFire is more worrying. You can also make small sparks with 5 volts under certain conditions, which may frighten someone about as much as a small shock.
- 1-more 26d agoThere were no loose energized cable ends in this story, fyi. The light strip was your standard white LED tape cut in the middle of the copper pads [0]. I soldered the USB cable's power leads to the copper pads [1] and then covered the solder joint with heat shrink tubing filled with liquid electrical tape [2]. Then on the strip I connected to, it was the same procedure but with a female USB-A connector. There were no conductors with exposed ends to move apart and make a spark. [0] e.g. https://www.homedepot.com/p/32-8-ft-LED-Tape-Light-120-LEDs-m-Soft-White-2700K-133250/314214062 https://www.homedepot.com/p/32-8-ft-LED-Tape-Light-120-LEDs-... [1] https://www.homedepot.com/p/Star-brite-4-oz-Liquid-Electrical-Tape-Black-084104N/206513456 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Star-brite-4-oz-Liquid-Electrica... [2] hero image from https://us.govee.com/blogs/led-strip-lights/how-to-solder-led-strip-lights https://us.govee.com/blogs/led-strip-lights/how-to-solder-le...
- BeetleB 27d agoI'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 27d agoWhat are ancient usb connections? Type A? B?
- pdpi 27d agoMini-B cables can be somewhat hard to find.
- sokoloff 27d agoSince 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.
- MisterTea 27d agoThere 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 27d agoOld digital cameras just used non standard usb shapes so they are almost impossible to find now.
- yoggies_bro 27d ago1. 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.
- anon7000 27d 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
- windowsrookie 27d ago1. 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.
- itintheory 27d agoWe 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 27d agogood for them. essential infrastructure. pillars of a civil society.
- felixfurtak 27d agoOnly one big box of cables! What an amateur. You need at least 4. And another one for power supplies.
- masfuerte 27d agoYes. And it's not even a big box.
- axus 27d agoIf 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 :)
- platevoltage 27d agoOh 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.
- jtbetz22 27d agoI 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 27d agoMy problem is I would feel entirely too curious to see what was in that ersatz time capsule I created a decade ago.
- geocrasher 27d agoI 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 27d agoIt 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.
- analog31 27d agoAs 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.
- deleted 27d ago[deleted]
- Balooga 27d agoThe trouble with old cables is after years they can become "tacky" or "melt" softer plastics they come into contact with. So storage is important.
- SmasherEpilepti 27d agoRecently, 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.
- godelski 27d agoThey 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 27d ago> They aren't even consistent within manufacturer! Especially if the "manufacturer" is just a reseller.
- dannyw 27d agoThey aren't even standard on the model! One of the brands swapped pin-outs mid production run (but same SKU number and no changes in model name/packaging); and even sent back a RMA'd replacement with a different set of pinouts, but no cable, causing the user to fry their PC. They had to make a post on r/hardware to get the brand to cover the damage, but IIRC, they never paid for data recovery services for the damaged HDDs. I like Corsair because they at least mark the cable types on both ends; and while their PSU range vary in quality; none are trash -- Type-4 is Type-4 (or at least, I haven't heard of any reports of mislabelling on that front).
- ishouldbework 27d agoAnd the types in general differ in size as well. Type-4 cable physically does not fit into Type-5 PSU (well, reading this thread, this probably saved me from burned system...)
- 27d ago
- Dwedit 27d agoHow about obsolete cables? IDE, RG59 coax, Cat 5, Composite video, etc...
- agent86 27d agoDepends 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 27d agoYou get into vintage computer collecting and regret all things that you tossed...
- fred69 26d agoJust went/still going through a vicious residential downsizing. In multiple boxes of cables, only IEEE488 and Centronics plug types didn't give me nightmares to toss. Oh, and the remaining spool of 300-ohm TV antenna cable. Kept some RG59 and associated tools, don't really know why.
- malkia 27d ago10% 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...
- reyostallenberg 27d agoVery funny comedy about this kind of stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6wZUV1t1y0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6wZUV1t1y0
- jodrellblank 27d agoAnd a Futurama moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxu7z7hfVns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxu7z7hfVns
- godelski 27d agoI 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 27d agoAlso 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.
- m000 27d agoHey! 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.
- joelrunyon 27d agoPencils 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.
- ErroneousBosh 27d 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.
- dogscatstrees 27d agoToday I learned another definition of skeet.
- computershit 27d agoYou keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means...
- DANmode 27d agoThey knew what they were doing.
- LandlordLedger 27d ago[flagged]
- juliie 27d agoI 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.
- walrus01 27d agoYou never know when you'll need a FireWire 400 cable or a charger cable for a handspring treo, I guess...
- OroPla 27d agoWait,.. you guys only have one big box of cables?
- octol 27d agoWhat if you have 7 big boxes of cables…?
- mailonce 27d ago[dead]
- wewewedxfgdf 27d agoTthe 2 days delivery is MUCH quicker to buy a new cable instead of searching for that cable in your many boxes of tech crap.
- tolerance 27d agoFor 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 27d agoI almost died from cringe when I hovered over the link and realized what he was talking about.
- nticompass 27d agoI have a Bluesky account (that I rarely use), and I had no idea they used the term "skeet".
- swalberg 27d agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICDRBVaH6Rc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICDRBVaH6Rc is an earworm of a song exactly about this.
- lordnacho 27d agoThis is how your kids end up with a SCART cable. That box that you move every time you move house without opening it.
- asdfman123 27d agoThe proper Latin term for someone throwing away your big box of cables is cabula rasa.
- lynndotpy 27d agoI 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.
- ChrisMarshallNY 27d agoI'm a cable hoarder. I have cables for technologies that have been dead, for decades. I need help.
- flippingheck 27d ago> I need help. Call SOS on your telegraph?
- ChrisMarshallNY 27d agoUsed signal drums.
- johnhtodd 27d agoI 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 27d ago> if you have graduated from "big box of cables" to "cabinets full of cables" I have much yet to learn, cable master :)
- asciimov 27d agoI 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!
- alaudet 27d agoI also have a big box of cables and now I no longer feel shame my brothers.
- beastman82 27d agothat's boxen in my case and I'm sure others
- anotherevan 27d agoI 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?
- aidenn0 27d agoI seriously doubt that I'll ever need the 3 floppy-drive cables or 10 IDE cables that I have.
- lowken 27d agoI 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.
- PorciiVorbesc 27d agoHDMI 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.
- edgarvaldes 27d agoI 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 27d agoI 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.
- jldugger 27d 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
- 27d ago
- marcogarces 27d agoI 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 27d agoSame here. I also keep an inventory and labels for Box A, Box B, etc.
- squarefoot 27d agoI 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!
- groby_b 27d agoFlip 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.
- karim79 27d agoThis 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.
- dekhn 27d agoI 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.
- kingrolo 27d agoI 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.
- colechristensen 27d agothings 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
- throwaway219450 27d agoSome 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.
- Legend2440 27d 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.
- protocolture 27d agoIT Recyclers will at least sort them and resell them in bulk as raw materials. Sometimes. When they are allowed to.
- culi 27d agoSomeone 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
- jwilliams 27d agoYou 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 27d agoYou 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.
- wileydragonfly 27d agoThrowing all that shit in a box and spending half an hour digging through it is half the fun. Your organization systems distress me.
- martinpw 27d agoThis 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.
- numpad0 27d agoI 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.
- colechristensen 27d agoI 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.
- deleted 27d ago[deleted]
- Havoc 27d agoUSB 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
- scosman 27d agoone box of cables? those are rookie numbers
- nickt 27d agoBox. 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.
- jnaina 27d agoover 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. All bagged up using ziplock bags and labelled. Never know when I might need them again...
- psiberaktiv 26d agohad to throw away tons of cables over the years, as the plastic degraded and become sticky mess.
- inopinatus 27d agoI 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.
- jmmv 27d agoI 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.
- RajT88 27d agoI 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.
- flurdy 27d agoI have also accepted I need duplicates of stuff for convenience. I have one box that has all that I need when we go away for the weekend/week (by car, not plane). All the chargers since the family now has a lot of phones, headsets, kindles, cameras etc. 2 HDMI cables, audio splitters, speakers, extension leads etc that I nearly always need when away for a while. And then my commute bag has a small essentials bag for the now rarer times I work elsewhere. All with duplicates of what I already have at home. That I before instead used to unpack and reuse at home, then find and repack all the time, and forget some. Not a problem anymore. My tech packing is literally picking up a box and put it in the boot of the car. Done.
- kwarcode 27d ago[dead]
- projproj 27d agoI 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.
- motomatteo 27d agogroup all, and use reusable zip ties. then it's something to be proud of
- motomatteo 27d agogroup plus reusable zip ties. then it's something to be proud of
- mrkpdl 27d agoOn the other hand, it feels great to no longer have a box of old cables...
- fragmede 27d agoYes. In a different version of the future, the bboc is replaced by next day amazon a universal adapter.
- tengbretson 27d agoObviously I'm going to keep the box, but the real question is how many hundreds of NEMA C13 cables should I keep?
- ares623 27d agoBut make sure to let daddy sammy take away your cognition, that's less important.
- isodude 27d agoI 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.
- absynth 27d agoOn 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.
- idatum 27d agoRecently 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!
- gr4viton2 27d agoI 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.
- noisy_boy 27d agoWe 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.
- culi 27d agoThe 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 27d agoI often thought about that too. There's a similar thing for sharing tools in the neighborhood.
- cgufus 27d agoThunderbolt 3 -> Thunderbolt 2 -> Firewire 800 -> Firewire 400 -> Ethernet USB 3 -> USB 2/1 --> micro/mini/whatever-USB VGA, DVI-D, DVI-I, HDMI, microHDMI, [m]DisplayPort 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.
- shrubby 27d agoI 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.
- centurix 27d agoMy yearly cull of cables across several boxes: 1. Sort into cable type 2. Keep the shortest and longest of each type 3. Ditch all the others I still have 6 drawers of cables.
- afiodorov 27d agoI prefer getting rid of old devices that needing to store old cables ad-infinitum.
- saidnooneever 27d agoonce i had a break in a sata cable. it caused occasional random bluescreens... some data would corrupt going from disk -> mem. i throw away all old cables and components now. screw the little sh*ts. into the bin before they cause me that level of misery again.
- zxexz 27d agoThis is the thing I almost, but don't quite, get. Throw away what doesn't work - either because it is complicated or...its protocol is needlessly contrived. Next step: do whatever you want. Upstream it, downstream, whatever.
- trolleski 27d agoSame goes for a box of nails and screws.
- nvarsj 27d agoI purge my box every few years. Do you really need 20 usb cables. I do save the esoteric ones though.
- vanschelven 27d agoThis post is basically Futurama's "assorted lengths of wire" in text-form, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxu7z7hfVns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxu7z7hfVns
- flurdy 27d agoThe problem with the big box of cables is that they multiply over the years. I now have 3 big boxes of cables. And a few smaller ones. At least they are see trough plastic so I can easily see what is inside them though.
- Stitch4223 27d agoMy cable box Protips: 1: use transparent boxes like an 11l IKEA Samla so you can easily see what you have. 2: fold each cable in half or a few times more and apply the granny knot[1], this will prevent your cables becoming an entangles mess. There are superior(tm) ways to fold cables, but doing the granny knot for household cables seems the way to go. Doing festivals with retro gaming computers I’ve done this thousands of times and it’s fast, saves space, gives quick and reliable access and prevents damage by pulling on cables from clutter etc 3: use multiple boxes for different categories: audio, game computers, standard power cables, pc cables (sata, usb), power bricks and so on to have some sort of a system, any system will work 4: don’t keep an inventory list: let the anarchy that is you, your memory and family, add and take away cables ad hoc. You will forget what is in the box and that is fine. 5: don’t forget the box exists and look in the box :) [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-g7cauAe7Ec https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-g7cauAe7Ec
- pantulis 27d agoFor 2, I just keep these little thingies that come with the sliced bread bags. Of course that requires a little thingies box.
- postoplust 27d agoCategorization and taxonomy for "little thingies": The Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group - A Database of Synthetic Taxonomy <https://www.horg.com/horg/?page_id=2936 https://www.horg.com/horg/?page_id=2936>
- cbility 27d agorather than tying them in knots I find it easier to bind them into bundles using garden wire, which you can usually find in ~100m rolls in any hardware store
- ErrorNoBrain 27d agoi bought a few loads of nice quality plastic boxes, with plastic lids (its got small handles that "clasp" around the lid, so they're almost air tight) then i sorted my cables and printed out a normal piece of paper, with the text like "networking", or "PC cables" or whatever and placed that in the side of the boxes then i can stack them in the basement and easily know which box i need, when i need a cable its been super handy. ive used the same trick, for same boxes, for our other storage boxes too. Wifes hobby items, christmas decorations, old consoles, or whatever makes it super organized. (you need transparent boxes if you wanna just throw in a label print on the inside. i can place one on top of the items and i can see it from above, or either side of the box)
- kstenerud 27d agoI have cabinets for cables (all tie-strapped), arranged in separate compartments: - USB cables with at least one USB-C end - All other USB cables - Network cables - Audio and video related (RCA, HDMI, SCART, phono, XLR, displayport, BNC, S/PDIF, etc) - Power cables - Power adapters - Batteries and battery chargers - Flash sticks, type adapters, diagnostic tools - Spare keyboards and mice Not a week goes by where I'm not grabbing something from that cabinet. A couple of months ago I actually needed a SCART cable for the first time in forever for some old hardware.
- pachico 27d agoI am sharing this link to my wife right now! In my defense, over the years, I upgraded the box for one of this big semitransparent IKEA boxes, lid included.
- mock-possum 27d agoOne for ac adaptors, one for usb, one for dvi, one for hdmi, one for display port, one for Ethernet, one for audio, one for midi/xlr, one for… let’s see what am I forgetting… Oh and the extensions, splitters, surge protectors, and remote switches all get their own big box in the garage of course.
- Brosper 27d agoLiterally today my friend asked me if I have a cable for an iPod :P
- meindnoch 27d agoForwarding this to my wife.
- jacquesm 27d agoOnly one big box? The poor people. I have at least five big boxes and I'm regularly being accused of being a hoarder. Except of course when someone needs a cable ;)
- MrBuddyCasino 27d agoWhat self-respecting household has only one box of cables? You need at least one big one for the mains-rated bulky ones, and a few smaller ones: USB, Monitor/Ethernet etc, Audio. I can recommend the small Ikea Knagglig boxes, they look nice and have the right size.
- jacquesm 27d agoYou need an SGI 1990's era video cable and I'm your guy :)
- pantulis 27d agoI have decided to not keep many cables. USB thingies, DVIs, VGAs, audio... you can get it from Amazon in pinch with same day delivery and I don't have that much space to spare. But you can pry my Palm data cables from my cold, dead hands.
- HaphazardGuess 27d agoI agree with you 100%. except for some legacy stuff that would be pretty hard to find I toss everything else out. If I really need it I can just buy a new one.....turns out I never need to buy a new one....yeah maybe once every 10 years....
- WesolyKubeczek 27d agoTest your cables once in a while. There is a lot of USB cables that look the same but have different capabilities, there is a lot of HDMI or DisplayPort cables that look the same but have different capabilities, there are cables that stop working once you bend them in a particular way. There are cables that can get sticky and filthy practically on their own (Apple!). Mind cables whose plugs are bent. I think the same should apply to perfectly fine screws you take off broken stuff, pieces of metal profiles, nuts etc. But I could never be arsed to sort them proactively. My late father used to keep a Big Jar of Screws and spend time rummage through them when he needed a particular one. I don't know which approach is superior, to be honest.
- Norwell_io 27d agoGrouping is what actually forces the dedup decision. A single cable always looks useful until you see ten of them side by side.
- piqufoh 27d agoHot tip - buy a box of small / medium zip lock bags and bag them all up. Duplicates in the same bag are ok (10cm / USB-C) etc. For the last 10 years my "techno box" has been a box of bags - the cables don't get tangled and small bits (adaptors / notes) get to live with the cables. Its one of the rare few home environment hacks I actually have!
- criley2 27d agoThis post isn't convincing me. I spent so much time meticulously organizing my techno box. I bought a back of the door shoe holder for tech. Every wire, charger, usb key, web cam, airline earbud, everything. It's been beautifully organized for years. It's been beautifully organized and useless for so many years that it's all junk now. Nothing is using USB A/B. The airline earbuds are as much trash today as they were then. The usb keys are very old and untrustworthy. Even the USB-C wires are all out of spec, won't charge modern phones, etc. The old webcams look like true trash compared to the modern ones. Etc etc And this post is basically "hoard all this garbage because in 10 years you might need one thing"? I'm sorry, but "buy that one thing for a few bucks off amazon the one time you need it" is looking a lot more attractive than "meticulously maintain a tech hoard to save $3 on a single use wire" In engineering terms, it feels like my tech hoard is an automation I spent two weeks writing, for code that only ever runs once every ten years.
- piqufoh 27d agoYes, I guess its a balance - the inconvenience of sorting through odd-shaped defunct USB standards vs actually needing one of those weird cables for an ancient camera in 10 years time. I naturally have the ~< £ from AZ mindset, but I try to challenge that by re-using avoiding waste. It doesn't always work (and there's a lot of eventual waste in those hundreds of zip-lock bags).
- hackisterium 27d agoRecently made a new friend via my big box of cables! Moved to new street. Didn't know anyone. Joined local chat group. Someone looking for mini-b cable. Took one over. Got talking about old digital cameras and photography. W.
- simondotau 27d agoOh great, grandad left an old pile of USB-A cables of wildly variable quality for my humanoid robot to shred
- M95D 27d agoI keep my cables hanging on an old coat rack. Each hook holds one category of cable: USB cables, ethernet cables, power cables, analog cables, digital data cables (other than USB and net), proprietary cables, etc. It's much easier to find a cable than searching in a box or plastic bag.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 27d agoI happen to have TWO big boxes of cables. One for home and one for work. Just this week ago I was vindicated by having just the cable someone needed for something. Not having a big box of cables nearby would be make feel exposed and vulnerable. Its security blanket made of obsolete connectors.
- m_w_ 27d agoGee Eddy_Viscosity2, how come your mom lets you have TWO big boxes of cables? I'm sure I have multiple VGA cables in mine, and I'm not sure a single device I own even has a VGA port on it anymore.
- onaclov2000 27d agoI've been wanting to get little baggies and put each cable in a different baggie, then have them on a hanging rack thing imagine like at the store when you want to buy a cable, something like that, I suppose sometimes they're on a shelf or whatever but I'm imagine a almost pegboard like situation, then keep them organized by cable and it's like oh lemme go grab a cable from my...store....the only problem is it requires me to actually put them back in a bag, and back on the spot....when I'm done with a given cable and that's a lot to ask for. Lol
- carlailab2025 27d agoThis is way too relatable. The one cable you finally throw away is somehow always the one you need six months later.
- gclawes 27d agohttps://rumble.com/v21h36d-too-many-cables-the-dick-show.html https://rumble.com/v21h36d-too-many-cables-the-dick-show.htm...
- gootz 27d agoSo is 3 boxes of cables too many??
- gclawes 27d agoToo Many Cables - The Dick Show https://rumble.com/v21h36d-too-many-cables-the-dick-show.html https://rumble.com/v21h36d-too-many-cables-the-dick-show.htm... > "If I throw away a cable, and then I need that same cable, I'll kill myself. I will go to the store and buy it, and then hang myself in the parking lot." "I know, it's not a matter of life and death, it's much worse than that."
- pil0u 27d agoI read the post and the comments here, I might belong to the 1% (apparently) who really do not relate at all. Or maybe I just own/tinker with less hardware than the average here. I recently followed through the Marie Kondo methodology, and giving up my cables (the ones I actually don't use, the ones "I might need later, some day, maybe") to my local community was a relief. Cables are obviously a tiny proportion of what the methodology covers, but part of my mental load anyway. Now, I know they have a greater chance to be used, and if I ever need one again, all of these cables are common enough to find them again.
- 1970-01-01 27d agoBuy the box of 2 gallon freezer bags, bag all cables by type, and then just chuck all of it into a big box or bin. Organized, forever.
- BrunoBernardino 27d agoMine's a (big) drawer, not a box, and this summer I got rid of most of the duplicate cables (after testing them). It ended with like 50% less stuff. My wife didn't care and wasn't impressed; I think because it's a drawer in the office that only I open and look at. I did also make it more organized per cable type (USBs, Network, Audio, etc.). It's OK. It's for me. It's OK.
- chatmasta 27d agoI’ve long wanted to take a digital inventory of my big box (boxes) of cables, with photo, connector types, etc.
- 00kee0d 27d agoWhen you keep something for 20 years and one day it finds it's place: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R7LsubMttMs https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R7LsubMttMs
- unxmaal 27d agoParts age into tools. As time and attrition happens, those 30 VGA cables turn into 10, then 3, then 1. What was once a bag of unimportant parts labeled “VGA” is now a single tool with a specific use case and that is critical for solving certain narrow problems. Don’t let anyone take your big box of tools.
- mattlondon 27d agoI have all "current" cabling needs in a sort of travel bag thing ... I think it is intended for digital cameras or something but its kinda an A5-sized zip-up "book" of a few pages of pockets and straps and velcro etc. So USB-C to USB-C cables, USB-C <-> USB-A adaptors, audio cables, audio splitters, USB->RJ45, etc etc etc Then whenever we are travelling we just grab that and I know that basically whatever happens on the plane or when we get to a hotel or whatever I have basically every possible combination covered. Perfect for carry-on. Its bad consumerism, but I try not to keep too much legacy stuff around and send it for recycling. If I need it again in O(years) then amazon will have it for me usually the same day or next morning.
- bluGill 27d agoRight, I keep the cables I commonly need, or cables that I know exactly what they go to. A new mini USB cable is cheap and I can get them from amazon if I need one, so why would I risk keeping one in my junk drawer in hopes it works (I just did this - I found a used high end device that has mini USB so I bought a new cable). That doesn't mean I purge all cables I'm not using. However I try to make sure that I know what they are for and be realistic about my odds of using them again.
- janandonly 27d agoI threw all my cables away. You can buy new ones for under €25 so why bother saving that big unsighted box of old sticky usb cables?
- qazxcvbnmlp 27d agoAlso: rent cost money, keeping track of stuff cost time and money. By all means keep it if you need it, but on some scale you can afford to re buy the new cable that you threw out from the savings of not dealing with clutter.
- spider-mario 27d agoMe: “I have too much stuff at home; I should get rid of what I’m not using to free up space.” HN:
- jswartz 27d agoBut isn't the whole point of having that big box so that you get to be this guy, drenched in heroism and wisdom: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R7LsubMttMs https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R7LsubMttMs
- mxuribe 27d agoTHIS is what is called *true joy*!!! :-D
- praptak 27d agoThe optimal level of cable regrets is non zero.
- LeifCarrotson 27d ago> They've been in the bottom for 10+ years. So, "when are you ever gonna use these?" was today. Don't ever let anyone take your Big Box of Cables away. The fact that you haven't used those cables in 10+ years doesn't mean that you haven't used the Big Box of Cables in 10+ years. "Declutter" advice doesn't work for needs like cables, auto maintenance, or cooking where doing the thing means you need a huge variety of tools/supplies on hand. Maybe you haven't used a USB 3.0 micro cable in years, but you use some cable every day. If you pull some cable from the big box (multiple drawers labeled separately as USB, network, display, audio/RF, serial, AC, wall warts, and misc for me), you're using the box. If you haven't made a recipe that requires majoram in forever, but you cook and eat every day, it's perfectly reasonable to have a bunch of spice jars. And maybe you haven't used that 3-jaw gear puller you "customized" for a tight fit with an angle grinder since that timing belt change in 2019... but cars still need constant maintenance. If you have given up the hacker lifestyle, and have decluttered your devices to a single iPad and a phone, both with wireless chargers, and think you'll never need a cable again...I pity you. But sure, give up the box of cables. But if you're constantly connecting and disconnecting things from other things, the combinatorics go up really fast and you need lots of cables.
- michael_forrest 27d agoYeah but I’m a developer, musician and a videographer so I’ve got a hold-all full of cables, a pelican case full of cables, a trunk in the garage full of cables, drawers full of cables and my office/studio is full of fucking cables all over the place.
- maxglute 27d agoOnce or twice a year, I regret throwing out my box of cables and doodads. The rest of the year I'm very happy I did it. If I were to assign price tag to that happiness it'd be ~$20.
- BubbleRings 27d agoYou are NEVER going to need that Centronics printer cable again! (That said, I probably still have two of them in my stuff ha.)
- YavenTeam 27d ago[dead]
- Hugsbox 26d agoTo whoever needs to hear this; Please don't use the word "skeet" to refer to a post online. I use bluesky semi-frequently, I've never heard that term before, and it's just... no. Just simply no.
- markstos 26d agoI have a small drawer of cables. If cable+1 doesn't fit, I have too many cables.
- csswizardry 26d agoAll of my pals laugh at me for carrying a packing square with USB C–C, A–C, Lightning, EU adapters, and three-pin plugs. Until they need to borrow one.
- likelybot 26d ago[dead]
- _spduchamp 26d agoDo you get those nightmares where you're trying to solve some problem but you don't have the right cables, and then the dream evolves into searching for the cables, but they're all wrong, and what was it you were trying to fix in the first place? Maybe this is why every drawer is now overflowing with cables.
- pushedx 26d ago"box" he says. "box". as if they could fit into a single "box".