cutting psu wires

Fold them up neatly and leave them alone. There is nothing good
that will result from random snipping of power supply cables.
You're in grave danger of shorting something out, to say nothing
of the fact you would eliminate any possibility of ever adding
anything to the computer.

"Softly Softly Catchy Monkey" wrote in
message ...
hi all.
i've got this old but small pc that i'm trying to "sooop" up and i
want to
have the case as empty as poss inside. now the thing is there is a
huge
excess of power cables coming from the PSU, taking up space and
being a
general mess. does anyone know if these can just be cut away?? if so
is
there any specific finishing necessary eg. re-insulating bits and
bobs??

all help appreciated.

cheers all.

kk

Softly Softly Catchy Monkey wrote:
hi all.
i've got this old but small pc that i'm trying to "sooop" up and i
want to have the case as empty as poss inside. now the thing is there
is a huge excess of power cables coming from the PSU, taking up space
and being a general mess. does anyone know if these can just be cut
away?? if so is there any specific finishing necessary eg.
re-insulating bits and bobs??

all help appreciated.

cheers all.

kk

cut the ones you don't need and seal with electrical tape.

"Softly Softly Catchy Monkey" wrote in message
...
hi all.
i've got this old but small pc that i'm trying to "sooop" up and i want to
have the case as empty as poss inside. now the thing is there is a huge
excess of power cables coming from the PSU, taking up space and being a
general mess. does anyone know if these can just be cut away?? if so is
there any specific finishing necessary eg. re-insulating bits and bobs??

all help appreciated.

cheers all.

You can cut them as long as you use a good set of wire cutters but you would
be really silly if you did so. You will get bitten by the "upgrade bug" and
if your current supply is a good large capacity one then you will regret it.
In my box there is enough room for me to tuck the un-used wire harnesses out
of the way above the PSU and between the PSU and the side wall of the box.
Check your box out, maybe you can do the same. Cutting the wires is a
really bad solution if you cut them on the out-side of the PSU. To do it
properly you would want to open up the PSU and detach (cut/unsolder/unscrew)
them from their connection point inside the PSU. If you are not absolutely
100% sure then take the PSU to somebody who is qualified and licensed and
pay them to do the mods.

My comp box started off with 1 HD and 1 CD-ROM and I thought that it was
great, I think I'll cut these extra wires off. "Where are the wire cutters?
OK, can't find them, I'll tuck the wires out of site." And then I saw
"Special - CD Burners - 50% off. I'll get one of them". And then "Damn,
the HD is full but I'm sick of using CDs to access the info, I'll get
another HD." And then at a net game meet "Some scum stole my speakers, I'll
fool them, I'll get a set that mounts in a 5.25 bay." And "My CPU is
getting too hot, I'll add another fan or two." Tough luck if I had cut the
wires off, as it was I had to buy a splitter to get power to the extras.

To tidy up the mess of wiring you could tape up each wire set with
electrical tape or even use some heat-shrink tube or tape. I've done tape
and heat-shrink and though heat-shrink looks great compared to tape it is a
hell of a lot fiddlier as you have to unclip the wires out of the plugs to
get the tubing on the wiring. If you use heat-shrink then don't use to much
heat on the shrink, it gets stiffer the more it shrinks. You can get
heat-shrink from most electronics supply shops and even some electrical
supply shops and it comes in a wide variety of colours.

There are many other methods of wrapping the wire sets, including using some
spiral harness tubing that you can get from a car accessories and parts
shop.

I don't like black electricians tape because over time the glue comes off on
the wires making them gooey.

What you should not do is use elastic rubber bands to hold the wires back!
They dry out in 3 months, in a year they get hard. They will break and end
up blocking your CPU or Video fans. I saw rubber bands in old 486 and P1
systems I serviced and sometimes there was rubber garbage inside the case.
They usually crumbled when you touched them.

Personally, I like tie wraps as they are quick to use, easy to remove, easy
to replace, can attack to the case structure, different sizes. You can
adjust the strength of the tie to make it loose so that the wires inside can
slide if need be or make it tight.

5 minutes and you are done. Everything looks neat.

Of course, don't use tie wraps on flat IDE and floppy cables as you can
crush them. You can use them if you use two tied loosely together to make
one wrap, it is now a flat oval adjusted to the size of the IDE cable. Seen
this many times in old PCs to tidy up floppy and IDE cables. It was a neat
idea.

On to a related subject, whenever I use tape (electrical, masking, duct) to
wrap something that I don't want goo on, I reverse wrap the cable first then
normal wrap. By this I mean I take the tape with the sticky side facing
out, the smooth side in on the cable and wrap backwards 2-3 times then fold
and reverse direction running the sticky side back down on the tape. This
creates a non-sticky tape ring around the cable. This is great for any
cable that has been wrapped in a circular coil. To keep the coil round, put
three tape wrings 1/3 around the coil to keep it neat. Note this is for
storage of printer, Ethernet, power, etc. cables or even sale of used ones.

I find that using paper masking tape is the best for this as when you want
to use the cable in the future, all you have to do is grab the free end of
the cable and pull back tearing each paper tape ring. No messing around
removing strong tape or looking for a knife or scissors. Depending on the
weight of the cable, you may have to wrap the cable 10 times to make the
paper tape strong enough to hold a big cable.

But the next problem is how do you make a neat coil to wrap??? Doing it by
hand is possible for cables 10 ft or so but longer ends up with messy cable
coils. So what I do is use round tapered sided containers. I have 3-4 of
them. I get them from a yogurt plastic container for small coils, to round
cleaning buckets. If you look at the sides, the top is bigger in
circumference than the bottom. When you want to coil up something, choose
the appropriate sized container and wrap the coil around the outside of the
top of the container working your way down. You can be fancy and not
overlap the coils or overlap neatly or just wrap randomly. It is tricky to
hold the container in one hand and hold the end down of the cable and hold
the coils from coming off while you wrap with the other hand. This system
is good for cables to 50-100 ft. When you are done, slide the coil gently
down the tapered sides (make sure you did not do it too tight or it will be
a bitch to slide off) and there is your neat cable. Have the masking tape
handy, reverse tape/forward tape it in three places and presto, one neat
coiled cable! Note: use plastic containers as these are flexible and you
cab flex then to remove the cable if it is coiled too tight. Now you can
write on the masking tape rings the length of the cable, type (straight or
crossover for Ethernet), etc. Whatever you want. Use a black fine point
marker.

Oh another trick coiling cables. Many times the cable you want to wrap is
coiled or was coiled ant it has some coils in it. When you wrap a long
cable around the container, the existing coils cause a problem by getting
tighter and knotting and kinking. What is happening is as you wrap, you are
twisting the cable in the same direction as the existing coils in the wire.
To overcome this, reverse the direction you are wrapping on the container.
For example, I am right-handed and when I wrap, I hold the container in the
left hand and wrap clockwise. The existing coils are clockwise. So as I
wrap, I tighten up the existing coils on the floor. Now if I reverse my
wrapping direction when I start and go counter clockwise, it takes out the
twists in the cable that had coils.

Now what about goo on the existing cables. Use WD-40 (great for any glue on
cases, walls, etc., just wash off right away to get rid of the oily residue)
on wad of paper towels and pull the cable the cable through the paper towel.
Pass the cable through a few times. Use rubbing alcohol as a different
solvent. Then use clean wet paper towel to clean the cable of the solvent.
NOTE: Do this in an area where you don't care if the floor gets dirty. In
the garage, basement, but not in the living room (carpet!!!!). If the cable
is real dirty, use a cleaner on a paper towel or on a scrubber sponge and
pull the cable through the cleaner. Always rinse with a clean paper towel
to remove the cleaner residue.

I have hand wrapped many cables over the years and these are some of the
tricks I figured out or picked up doing this. I trust this helps someone.

"Dave" wrote in message
...

"Softly Softly Catchy Monkey" wrote in message
...
hi all.
i've got this old but small pc that i'm trying to "sooop" up and i want
to
have the case as empty as poss inside. now the thing is there is a huge
excess of power cables coming from the PSU, taking up space and being a
general mess. does anyone know if these can just be cut away?? if so is
there any specific finishing necessary eg. re-insulating bits and bobs??

all help appreciated.

cheers all.

You can cut them as long as you use a good set of wire cutters but you
would
be really silly if you did so. You will get bitten by the "upgrade bug"
and
if your current supply is a good large capacity one then you will regret
it.
In my box there is enough room for me to tuck the un-used wire harnesses
out
of the way above the PSU and between the PSU and the side wall of the box.
Check your box out, maybe you can do the same. Cutting the wires is a
really bad solution if you cut them on the out-side of the PSU. To do it
properly you would want to open up the PSU and detach
(cut/unsolder/unscrew)
them from their connection point inside the PSU. If you are not
absolutely
100% sure then take the PSU to somebody who is qualified and licensed and
pay them to do the mods.

My comp box started off with 1 HD and 1 CD-ROM and I thought that it was
great, I think I'll cut these extra wires off. "Where are the wire
cutters?
OK, can't find them, I'll tuck the wires out of site." And then I saw
"Special - CD Burners - 50% off. I'll get one of them". And then "Damn,
the HD is full but I'm sick of using CDs to access the info, I'll get
another HD." And then at a net game meet "Some scum stole my speakers,
I'll
fool them, I'll get a set that mounts in a 5.25 bay." And "My CPU is
getting too hot, I'll add another fan or two." Tough luck if I had cut
the
wires off, as it was I had to buy a splitter to get power to the extras.

To tidy up the mess of wiring you could tape up each wire set with
electrical tape or even use some heat-shrink tube or tape. I've done tape
and heat-shrink and though heat-shrink looks great compared to tape it is
a
hell of a lot fiddlier as you have to unclip the wires out of the plugs to
get the tubing on the wiring. If you use heat-shrink then don't use to
much
heat on the shrink, it gets stiffer the more it shrinks. You can get
heat-shrink from most electronics supply shops and even some electrical
supply shops and it comes in a wide variety of colours.

There are many other methods of wrapping the wire sets, including using
some
spiral harness tubing that you can get from a car accessories and parts
shop.

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 18:09:46 GMT, "rcm" wrote::


Of course, don't use tie wraps on flat IDE and floppy cables as you can
crush them. You can use them if you use two tied loosely together to make
one wrap, it is now a flat oval adjusted to the size of the IDE cable. Seen
this many times in old PCs to tidy up floppy and IDE cables. It was a neat
idea.

"crush" them? Crushing these cables isn't a consideration. You can
no more crush them, than you can crush the other cables. Wrapping the
IDE and floppy cables in zip ties or automotive tubing is a common
method for producing homemade rounded cables. In theory, you can
improve air flow this way, but also in theory, you may re-introduce
inductive interference between the conductors (which defeats the
purpose of the 40 ground wires in the UDMA cables).

If you're talking about folding them and secure them with zip ties to
reduce space and to keep things neat, many OEMs do this. So long as
you don't fold and unfold them too often, there shouldn't be a problem
with functionality. It does, however, make the case interior more
neater looking.


----------------------------------------
Thanks,

MCheu