How you unroll/roll a cable neatly?

[david]

Hi How you unroll/roll a cable neatly?

'bout time I learnt!

-- zzapper vim -c ":%s%s*%Cyrnfr)fcbafbe[Oenz(Zbbyranne%|:%s)[[()])-)Ig|norm Vg?"

vim, zsh & life tips

[Lobster]

Wear a suit and tie?

David

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Drop one end off a cliff. Easy to coil it properly then, as it removes any twists.

The only sensible way is how they do TV camera cables. You do them in a figure of eight. That way it's near impossible to pull the end out from the wrong side of the coil when uncoiling. And since you're reversing the direction twice each layer, the cable always coils correctly. Except when I try it. ;-)

[Aaron]

A good way to do it is to run the cable out completely first and make waves with it to get any kinks out, then take one end in your had and take a piece about a metre in length and bring it up towards your hand holding the connector; With you fingers put a twist into the cable as you come round, drop the length into your hand and if all is well then you should have a loop of cable that will sit in your had. Repeat until done, not forgetting to add a twist each time you loop round and making all the loops about the same size.. Try to do it so the two ends sit just past each other, then you can tie between them with a wrap of tape or a bit of string.

If all goes well you'll have a coil of cable with will come free at one end and feed nicely out when you uncoil it, failing that you'll get a nasty mess (like if you wrap it between your hand and elbow).

If you have smaller cables, bring it in half and in half again then take one side of ends and tie a not with the other half of ends. These ones can then just sit in a box.

If you have lots and lots of length a hose reel may be a better way to go but make sure you run the cables out and get rid of kinks before you use them again.

If you use your cables alot then you can get velcro cable ties, I brought some big reels of them rather than paying a huge amount for a pack of ten.

[Andy Dingley]

Same as kite lines - by avoiding putting any twist into it.

Use a reel: Let the reel do the work, run the cable straight onto the reel and don't run a twisted cable onto the reel.

Round your forearm. Be careful _not_ to put twist into the coil - which works more easily with short lengths, where you're not "pushing all the twist" into a short length of cable between your coiling hand and the pile on the floor. If necessary, walk out a long straight length and then coil it back untwisted as you walk it up.

Figure 8. You let it put a half twist into each turn, with opposing directions so that each turn cancels itself out. This is easiest if you have a "wool winder" or some sort of "square U" frame to wrap it onto. Works well for multi-cable cables (welder hoses) or thick cables.

To unroll it, then it's better to move the reel over the length of the run than it is to sit the reel stationary at one end and just pull it out. Better for the plugs too.

BTW - Ikea used to sell handy little Velcro cable straps; 50p/3 Haven't seen them in ages ?

[Harry Bloomfield]

[e-mail] submitted this idea :

To unroll from a drum, put a bar through the centre and fix the bar or get an assistant to hold it, then just pull the loose end for as much as you need. Alternatively, grab several turns one at a time of the side of a drum then unroll those. Repeat until you have enough cable unrolled.

To return a cable back onto a drum, reverse the above.

Where no drum is involved hold one end of the cable in one hand, then leaving a large loop add turns to your hand one at a time, whilst adding a twist in the cable for each turn - so that the cable hangs perfectly flat with no kinks.

Never, ever pull a cable or flex with a kink in it or the cable will be ruined.

[Stefek Zaba]

Like the world's said, figure-of-8 is your friend. For shorter lengths, going round your forearm crossing in the middle of it works fine. When the combination of cable length and thickness makes it impractical to fit on one British Standard forearm, do it 'in the air' using both hands with arms somewhat outstretched - so the ends of the figger-o-8 are maybe 4ft apart. To do this, keep repeating to yourself 'bottom... bottom... bottom...': i.e., as you form each new length of the figger-o-8, since it entered the bottom of your (say) left hand, it's come out of the top; pass it to the bottom of your right hand. Repeat for the r-to-l length - out of the top of the rh and to the bottom of the LH. This puts the required crossing-over into each length, creating the non-tangling non-twisted neatish figgro8 we're after.

[Bob Eager]

If I'm installing cable from a reel, I use a piece of old copper pipe, a G cramp and a Workmate opened out enough to let the drom drop in between the two sides.

[Chris J Dixon]

To achieve the twist, what I do is to give the hand holding the loops a 180 deg turn about a vertical axis between each loop, so that loops are added alternately to the "front" and "back" of the coil.

Chris

[mike ring]

Stefek Zaba wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I tried this in the garden.

They say I'll be ok in a week or two ;o)

mike

[Lobster]

Hope you didn't let that neighbour see you you doing it! David

[mike ring]

Lobster wrote in news:yxk1e.15952 $ [e-mail]:

Just as well he did, *he* called the ambulance

mike