Cable Origami - the way to go

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 10:28 pm

Over the last few nights I've been messing about with a stack of old ribbon cables I've collected over the years. Worked with different angles and bends and twists, creating some interesting shapes. Basically, I was inspired by Ralf's 'cablegami' in the Pics forum.

Got bored tonight and shut the system down and took in to the kitchen counter / workbench. A few hours later I'd removed some fan grilles, replaced the fan in the Sparkle PSU with a Panaflo (12v for now), and had worked some magic with cablegami in the system. Being able to creatively fold the flat cables out of the way produced some VERY nice results. I think it looks far cleaner than using round cables.

I'm definitely converted to cablegami for future rigs.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 5:02 am

Way to go bud. It's you and me against the "rounded cable " hoards. It'll be an uphill battle though. Hope you're up for it.

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 6:40 am

Definitely up for it. Flat cables can be run nearly 100% out of the way, and be almost completely hidden. Most of the cases I've seen with round the cables seem to add to any existing cable spaghetti.

Now I need to pick up some sleeving for the mess of wires for the m/b.

Riffer · Post by **Riffer** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 7:04 am

The only problem with the flat ones is that it is a pain to redo everything ever time you change something. Kind of fun though - trying to figure put how to fold them to get them in precisely the correct orientation and length.

My Sister's system is a little more stable than mine, so I have done an oragami job in her computer.

Try and find the Maximun PC article that they did on the folks at Voodoo PC. They were the masters.

My main computer has round cables - look cooler, more convenient if you do a lot of component swapping, and in my setup they don't really impede airflow any more than flat ones would.

sbabb · Post by **sbabb** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 8:33 am

Voodoo PC has a PDF of the Maximum PC article on their cable origami on their web site.

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:18 am

Oooh, nice pics in that article. Rather slow download speed, but was worth it.

Looking at their folds, I think I might have crimped my folds down a bit too tight. That's definitely where I want to get to once I get all my components figured out and settled in. Oh, hmm.... gonna be awhile then.

I did put a couple cables behind the m/b, that's a nice way to do it. Routed the front panel mini-ribbon wire and the sound card wire from the CD drive behind the m/b, poking out from the edge where they need to.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 12:22 pm

Well damn.

The first thing I did when I decided to learn cablegami was to go looking for that MaxPC article online and I could never find it. I googled till my fingers got numb and found zilch. I even went to Voodoo's site to see if I could find some halfway decent pics of their work and never saw that article there. Oh well. I'm self-taught but I think I do OK.

Elite · Post by **Elite** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 2:04 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:Well damn.

The first thing I did when I decided to learn cablegami was to go looking for that MaxPC article online and I could never find it. I googled till my fingers got numb and found zilch. I even went to Voodoo's site to see if I could find some halfway decent pics of their work and never saw that article there. Oh well. I'm self-taught but I think I do OK.

I did that too on the Voodoo site, I eventually had to look in old PCGamer issues for hints. But mostly is was trial and error. And yeah, round cables suck. I still have my pic of the first attempt, pretty sad.

sbabb · Post by **sbabb** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 2:37 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:Well damn.

The first thing I did when I decided to learn cablegami was to go looking for that MaxPC article online and I could never find it. I googled till my fingers got numb and found zilch. I even went to Voodoo's site to see if I could find some halfway decent pics of their work and never saw that article there. Oh well. I'm self-taught but I think I do OK.

I googled "maximum pc voodoo" (without the quotes) and it came up with Voodoo PC's reviews/articles brag page. I went through a few of the Maximum PC articles there before I hit this one.

I, too, have done the cablegami thing using your photos, Ralf. It works out well. Time for someone to write an article about it. Maybe I'll take pics when I build the next PC and write it up.

Scott

nhamilto40 · Post by **nhamilto40** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 3:27 pm

Interesting stuff but its on the way out. With SATA the only ribbon cables in a modern pc will be found only in ones with ancient floppy drives and/or the outdated parallel SCSI.

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 3:43 pm

On the way out? Doubtful.

Augmented with SATA? Perhaps.

More common? Yeah, I'll give ya that.

For newer systems there probably will be an increase in the use of SATA and its small cabling. But look at the MASSIVE installed base out there using standard flat ribbon IDE cables. And look at many folks here at SPCR that are using 2-3 year old (or more) systems that work just durn fine for what they need. You're not going to be seeing SATA turn up in a Tualatin Celeron system.

Marvin · Post by **Marvin** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 2:22 am

Just read that voodoo article, WOW.

Couple of weeks ago I had some time to do what I had seen done by Ralf. I didn't get nearly as neat as Ralf her, but I think i did allright. I had only one problem, my HDD lies on the bottom of a case and folding the cable to there was a killer, especially when that slave connector was exactly where I would have needed a nice fold

But its lots cleaner now...