Sunday, October 19, 2008

DIY: how to create an invisible cable holder in less than 5 minutes

In my work desk, I have these loose cables coming from below that allow me to connect some of my gadgets to their corresponding chargers:

One is for connecting my Nokia N80, the other is to connect the Bluetooth headset Nokia BH-210. The grey USB cable is connected to a 4-port Hub where I connect some other gadgets such as my printer, a mouse and the iPod dock that you can also see on the image. This way, I can have all of these connected to my laptop by just using one USB port.

The problem with these loose cables is that they are loose...obvious, right? And because of that they're always falling, which means that then I have to go under the desk to fetch them and gently putting them back on top of the desk, hoping that they won't fall again.

What I really wanted was a way to maintain them easily accessible (and obviously not loose), yet not visible, in order to garantee a pleasant view of my desk.

I'm pleased to report that I achieved my goal, and the best of all is that I did it using simple objects that you can find anywhere and under 5 minutes.

What you'll need:

  • A hole punch
  • Some duct tape
  • An old business or credit card that you won't be using anymore (plastic ones work better)
  • A scissor or other cutting uttensil


Got everything? Good, let's start...

Step 1: Use the hole punch to make one hole for each wire on the business card. I'm using 3, as explained above, but this hack will work for any cable, such as network cable, laptop charger, etc...


Step 2: Using the scissor, cut a small passage between the edge of the card and each hole, as shown on the picture below. This will allow you to place the wires in the right place and still prevent the charger connector from falling.


Step 3: Using the duct tape, place the business card under the table and slide all the wires through. Some of the cables (such as USB) can be somewhat heavy, thus you'll be needing a strong enough duct tape to hold everything together.


Step 4: Marvell yourself with the beauty and simplicity of your new invisible cable holder:


I hope this will help keep you desk more organized too :-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brilliant! I'm making mine right now! Thanks, exactly what I was looking for! saved me some time and money!

Anonymous said...

Job done in less than two minutes... kicking myself for not thinking of it, well done that person.