Well, I'm pleased with it: cable management idea

[Peter Scott]

I am fitting a new desk top for younger son's study. I needed to allow computer cables to go from underneath to the desk top and vice versa. I had just spend several days sanding and sealing the slab of pine and didn't want to cut a hole in it. The slab butts against a stud wall. Musing (as one does) I realised that a double cavity wall socket box set in the plasterboard, with the longest side vertical, and equally above and below, would have room for several cables. I'll trim a blanking plate to seal off the hole.

Just thought I'd share that with you...

[SimonJ]

So you prefer to cut a hole in the wall, rather than the desktop..........

Surely a far better idea (if you really couldn't bear to cut the top) would have been to fit some sort of spacer, to hold it 1/2" away from the wall.

[Rob Morley]

Plaster walls are easy to patch up, so why not knock holes in them? There are already plenty of wires and stuff running through the walls, a few more won't make much difference.

[:::Jerry::::]

sealing the

butts against a

vertical, and

desktop..........

walls, a

Well, seeing that a modern 'office' desk is *always* going to need some form of cable management system I can see no reason to start knocking holes in building walls what so ever - what happens when the room furnishings get re-arranged...?

[<me9]

I've got a couple of the round rubber door stops on the back of mine for that very purpose.

[meow2222]

sounds to me like people trying to solve a non problem. Computer desks are placed 1/2" from the wall to allow the cables to go down.... why wuold you need any socalled cable management system?

I guess it helped sell some products, but isnt in any way needed.

If you want to neaten things up, mount some sockets on the underside of the table at the back, and make some very short IEC leads. Preferably including a double headed lead or 2. And get rid of the wallwarts powering accessories, just run them off the PC PSU with molexes.

NT

[Sparks]

...so you cut a hole in the wall so you can pass cabled past a desk top... ...next you will be telling us you have bricked up your windows so you dont have to close the curtains...

...that explains it then...

[:::Jerry::::]

need

Well, for one thing a desk being tight to the wall tends to stop papers etc. failing down the back of said desk. the other thing is that having a desk away from the wall often just looks plain ugly!

underside of

Preferably

Can you run a monitor off molexes then?...

ISTM that first you suggest that people are making a mountain out of a mole hill and then suggest doing just that yourself!

[Peter Scott]

Coooo....

Just wanted to share an idea that someone might find useful and what happens?

Gaps held apart by door-stops! Papers tumbling down behind desks! Am I alone in liking smoothness and style? Must be because I come from a generation that used some of the ideas of the Bauhaus. Imagine a smooth pale pine desk, lovingly smoothed and sealed until it gleams. Imagine sliding your paper across it and resting your elbows. See it butted against a matt wall glowing softly from the light flowing in from the nearby window. Just the right atmosphere for intellectual meditation. The indoor equivalent of a Zen garden.

What do you want to do? Drill a bloody great hole in it. Ugh!

Peter Scott

[:::Jerry::::]

Who said anything about drilling holes in the top! Have you never heard of desks that have a rear cable management try and were the desk top slides forwards to allow access? At worst it means a couple of 1 x 2 inch cut outs on the rear edge... :~)

Anyway, what's the problem with a hole in a desk top, seeing that you don't seem to mind bashing holes in your house walls!

[Frank Erskine]

I find it amazing that you got such criticism for this project, as if you've committed a criminal offence :-)

[SimonJ]

Whats 'smooth and stylish' about a big hole in the wall?

Then see the bloody great chunk missing from the softly glowing matt wall!

Given that you have to cut something somewhere, surely better to have a few notches out of the back of the table, hidden by the computer anyway, than to have a bloody great 3" x 6" hole in the wall!

[dennis]

What is wrong with cutting holes in walls. Its easy. You can achieve a neat finish. You can hide tons of cable. Its easy to fill the hole if you move.

Unlike cutting the table, where it requires a lot of effort to fill the hole later.

[:::Jerry::::]

Well, yes, most people are going to do that, how many re-decorate the week before moving - more likely the new owner will end up finding bloody great holes in there 'new' walls! Also, what if you just simply want to move the desk, a simple job turns into a re-decoration.

It's a desk FFS, it's always going to need holes for cables of some sort, even if it's just a desk lamp and the hole doesn't need to be that large anyway - in a domestic environment anyway.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Peter Scott" saying something like:

Majestic herds of wildebeest thundering across the plain...

[meow2222]

take yer pills Jerry. What a thread!

NT

[Mike Barnes]

Agreed.

Too inflexible and frankly too much trouble for my taste - I simply fold the excess and secure it with cable ties.

Again, rather too much trouble to solve a non-problem - wall warts can't be seen under the desk, and anyway a lot of them here are for phones and routers and other stuff that I don't want switched off when the computer's switched off. Under this desk there are [counts] 34 thirteen- amp sockets, with 13 wall warts.

My hint for neatening things up is to use self-adhesive cable clips on the underside of the desk, to run wires from A to B invisibly and without touching the floor. Also, as suggested above, bunch up any excess cable and secure it will cable ties. I have a lot of gear here and the wiring is pretty-much invisible. Look at the underside of my desk, though, and there it is, all (fairly) neatly laid out and tangle- free.

[Peter Scott]

Aaah! Someone else with a finely honed sense of atmosphere!

Peter Scott

[Peter Scott]

Every situation will need a different solution. Yours are fine and I have done similar myself. Thanks

Peter Scott

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Peter Scott" saying something like:

Tell you what though; if I was knocking a hole in the wall for the cables, I'd be inclined to make more of a feature of it. Sometime when the desk is no longer there, the niche in the wall can be a display space for a small trophy; like an Allcomers' Cup for wood polishing, perhaps.