Well, the big idea for a ways down the road. Thing is, if you think Thom’s going to stop with making pre-defined, if parameterizable parts, you’re cray-cray! No, my ultimate idea is someone uses an app to configure a strip and package of wiring-retention “modules” that can then be 3d printed and shipped. Mass customization of wiring-panel harness-holding. Not just innovative shapes and ways of mounting, but a whole new way of buying them in the first place. Gettin’ kinda scary cool, right? Cheers! Rando
Category: 4CELNK-YR No-Waste Cable Clips
4CELNK-YR are a 3D-printed, modern solution to the age-old problem of managing lots of cables.
Demo me now
Yeah yeah yeah, heard it all before, revolutionary this, blah blah blah. Okay fine…check this out. That’s FOUR full-thickness HDMI cables in the first picture. Cables can be added to and removed with nothing more than pulling on the arms. They snap around the bar, and they fit normal tubing sizes. You can put multiple of them on a tube and have multiple separate sets of wires routed, all configurable without tools and without waste. No more cutting and re-applying tie-wraps. No more wasting them. No more having to remove the clamp to get just one wire out. Cheers! Rando …
Pre-Production Run has Begun!
Preproduction results are starting to come in: A weekend with a TAZ-4 3D printer nets around $750 in product, at a rate of about $30/hour, with attention required of ~5 minutes every 1.5-2 hours. That would be kicking the parts off the build bed, and clicking extrude. total waste plastic, since I’m not printing a skirt (but rather a small “sacrificial body” to prime the hotend), is only 0.17 grams of plastic. Me Likey! Regards, Rando
A Wooden (Demo) Vehicle is Revealed
And THAT, my friends, is the makings of the start of a product introduction. What you see here is a new way of managing wires. Initially for a small niche need, but they’re efficient enough to produce, and represent a genuine need in the market for a re-usable, semi-permanent, no-tools required cable management device where you don’t throw it away every time you want to make a change, unlike wire-ties. There are no fasteners and no sharp edges. Each weighs only ~7gm. You can adjust the tension in the arms by using more of the the supplied bands that happen …
What’s he up to now? Cutting WOOD?
Yeah, yeah, anyone can cut holes in a board. What fresh hell is this you have cooking up? Well sure, anyone can cut HOLES. But, can just anyone make THIS kind of holes? That are actually bosses with fillets around and on top, and a chamfer at the entry? All sized just right for a specific set of tubes? Oh…and while you’re drilling those flat-bottomed holes, would you might being so kind as to make a mirror-image copy? You know, for the top…. They’re intended to look like “something a human can’t make–easily” but that doesn’t really draw attention to …
Wait…They charge HOW much?
Check this out: https://www.dxengineering.com/…/nte-adjustable-ladder-style… I post this to show how even with mainstream, crappy wire-retention devices like sold by this reputable vendor, they STILL have markup far more than you’d expect, and well within my ability to print a better solution. Who knew this entire “specialty wire management device” industry was operating on such fat markups in low quantities?
Initial Retail Packaging Experiments
And here we have the first two prototype retail packages of “2018-027-101 4CELNK-YR OR3V Kit v0.1” Six of the large, three of the small, with 40 bands (2-3 each is typical). Note the trick logo…see? Wires….snort snort…we’ll get a better one soon 😀. These are going to a gentleman and his wife, for their twin gaming rigs, down in Oklahoma. Cheers! Rando.
Encouraging words from strangers
…are always a welcome thing! Well, THAT was weird. Yet very encouraging. As I was coming home from a trip to find tiny rubber bands for this product, I noticed that the local HAM Radio people were having an event in a local park. I swung in, but they were closing it down; it started yesterday. I had brought a couple of this new wire-retaining thing with me to size the rubber bands. We talked a bit and I pulled out the two pieces, and these guys, every one, went pretty much ape-sh!t excited over them. Why? Because when they …
It even fits over the test fixture
Looks like it fits over the test-fixture. Sure hope the test-fixture’s right (will later find out, due to BAD measurements from a “friend”, that these numbers were wrong. How do you f*ck up measuring the diameter of a tube?) Pink was used here for visibility; normally they’d be black. It’s the small victories in life that seem to be so hard-won. Cheers! Rando
I think this might just work!
TL/DR: Presenting 2018-027 4CELNK-YR Gaming-specific Wire Retention Device. Wow…feels like it’s been too many days since I’ve shown anything new and fun. Okay, so here goes. New product, this one with possible legs. You all probably know the 4CELNK-branded brackets I sell. Well, one of those customers asked me to solve a problem they have: the only one making custom wire-retention devices is gouging them, and the product isn’t very good. Can Thom please make a better one? Well heck yeah! This little beauty can hold four power cords in the “permanent” area, and then another EIGHT (SJT) power cords …