Wonko's Guide to Custom Cables!

[wonko]

I just spent a couple of months building a new gaming 'puter and decided to do all custom cabling so it would look nice and clean.

I think it turned out okay (although definitely not perfect) - you can check out my build log and tell me what you think.

Anyway, dozens of people begged me to put out a guide for how to do the custom cabling. If you don't believe me, I'd be happy to give you the email addresses of those people as soon as I go and create a few dozen gmail accounts under assumed names.

Here is my step-by-step guide:

1. Look for tutorials on YouTube and on different OC forums.
2. Convince yourself it's really pretty easy, once you see how it's done.
3. Spend.. oh, I don't know... literally minutes and minutes researching what tools you need and what materials you should buy and in what quantities.
4. Blindly purchase everything.
5. Wait impatiently for your purchases to come in... breathless with anticipation and losing sleep because you're so excited to start this grand new adventure!
6. It's finally here!
7. Tear open the box and take everything out of its original packaging. This serves two purposes. First, it allows you to visualize how it's all going to fit together and which tools will be used for each step. Second, it guarantees that nothing you purchased can ever be returned.
8. You decide to do the 8-pin motherboard power cable first. You grab a piece of wire and thread it through the machine, following the path you believe would be best for a nice, clean look.
9. Sit down and sleeve your first wire! As you slide the end of the wire into the sleeve, mentally pat yourself on the back. After all, most computer L-users could never do something like this.
10. Wait... how come that sleeve is coming unraveled? Isn't this wire just supposed to slip in there or something?
11. It's okay. Heck, it's probably just the way you were holding it. Just pull that out of there, snip off the ugly part and try again.
12. No big deal. You've got plenty of this stuff. You'll just snip off that ugly part again. You're sure you'll get it next time.
13. What the heck?!? It keeps coming unraveled!
14. You read somewhere you can keep that from happening by using a lighter to heat the end of the sleeve. Not a problem. You'll just go and... wait.. is there a lighter anywhere in this house?
15. Back from the store with your newly purchased lighter in hand, you're ready to go! Give yourself some extra mental kudos for investing in a nice Zippo. After all, if that's good enough for Indiana Jones and those guys from Supernatural, it's good enough for you!
16. Back from the store again, this time with lighter fluid, you're really ready to go!
17. Carefully apply the flame to the end of the sleeve. Let it cool and then slide the wire gently into... hold on... that's not going in. Okay... slide the wire into... dammit... it won't... crap! The end of the sleeve is melted shut! No worries. You have plenty of the stuff. You'll snip off that ugly part and try again.
18. Only four tries! Yes! So, you gently slide the wire into the... WHY DID IT COME UNRAVELED AGAIN?!?!
19. Pulling the wire out in frustration, you scratch your finger on the shiny copper strands that are sticking out of the end of the insulation. What a dork you are, you chuckle. Man... what a boneheaded mistake. You can't believe you got so frustrated when it was such a simple thing. Of course those wires are going to catch on the weave of the sleeving. No problem. You'll just take that lighter back to Walmart since you don't smoke. Oh... yeah... they probably won't take it back since the wick is burnt and it's full of lighter fluid. Dang. Oh well... it was only $12. No biggie.
20. You trim the end of the wire, congratulating yourself on getting past your first silly mistake. You chuckle again, shaking your head at how silly you were.
21. The wire slides in without catching and you tell yourself you were so foolish to think it was going to be so hard. This is pretty easy. Not at all diffi... wait.. why the wire go in any further? It only went in about three inches. Now it won't go in any further? All of those pictures are of wires that are, what? Sixteen feet long, or something? How did they do that?!
22. Spend two hours searching online for wire lubricant, ways to pull wire through the sleeve and similar topics. Actually, you only spend about three minutes doing that. When you're finished reading about the next Avengers movie, you start looking again for a solution to... OMG! I can get rid of belly fat with this one weird trick?!
23. Realize one of the videos you watched way back in step one said something about "caterpillar" or "millipede" or something. Spend an hour trying to find that video.
24. Wow! That's it? You can't believe how simple it is! You start inching the sleeve down the wire and eventually realize the sleeve isn't long enough because you cut off so many unraveled or melted pieces of sleeving.
25. You cut more sleeving from the spool and inch it down the wire. Perfect! Boy, that sure does look good, doesn't it? Nice!
26. You go back and look at that video that showed you how to crimp the pins on the end of the wires and figure there's no time like the present! Let's do this!
27. How did you not order a crimping tool?
28. Four days later, the crimping tool finally arrives and you're ready to make some progress!
29. It didn't come with connector pins?
30. Five days later, the pins arrive and you learn that there really is a difference between male and female pins. Fortunately, following the "open every package" strategy, you can't return these.
31. Finally, after a few more days, you've got everything you need and you finally get perfect crimps after only 11 or 12 tries! Per end!
32. There you go! The wire is sleeved! The ends are crimped! Time for the heatshrink!
33. The heatshrink tubing slides easily over the crimped pin and into the end of the sleeve which promptly unravels.
34. Two YouTube videos later, you finally have the whole thing finished! So, it's not perfect. You know you'll get better as you go. You mentally congratulate yourself on your accomplishment and prepare to do those seven other wires for the motherboard power connection!
35. This is great! Four wires are totally done! They're all the same length! They look good! Of course, they look good. You used that first wire as a guide for measuring the rest of the wires. Man. These really do look pretty good.
36. Six down, two to go! Woo hoo!
37. You're out of connector pins? What the heck?
38. You're dying to get this first complete cable finished. Waiting those three days for the connector pins are soooo frustrating!
39. Nice! Number seven is done! Moving on to... aw, crap. You're out of sleeving.
40. That's it! It's finally finished! You do a little dance and imagine yourself being cheered by nerds everywhere! "Amazing custom cable!", they say. "You're the case mod king!", they shout. Of course, you know they're right.
41. Double-checking the pin-outs, everything looks good. All of the voltages map correctly and so do the grounds. You're going to plug this bad boy in and step back to admire your work!
42. You plug one end into the motherboard and carefully thread the cable through the machine until you get to the PSU and realize the cable is about three inches too short due to all of the snipping and re-crimping.
43. Go play the XBox for a month.
    

Do this enough times, and you'll have the pleasure of a complete custom cabling job in your computer. Honestly, it's worth the hundreds of dollars you'll spend on a $50 project.

 

[Tyerker]

 

[Hebiertje2]

Nice man! i will follow this one when i start my mod in a week

 

[Tweaked1024]

Giggled thru it all man. Thank you, rough day at work and came home to this. If read properly, very educational. Hehe. Love it. Can anyone say Stickieeeee.

 

[wonko]

Glad you liked it! I actually started off trying to list some of the lessons I learned doing this project. It turned into this basic list of what not to do. So, to sum it all up:

1. Have a clear vision of what you want to do.
2. Understand that this vision will change drastically as you get into the project and see what works and what doesn't... what looks good and what doesn't.
3. Don't buy tools and materials you don't really need.
4. When you do buy your tools and materials, don't take them out of their packaging until you actually need to use them. And make sure you buy from a place that has a good return policy. You'll find that there will be things you thought you needed but never actually use.
5. Research, research, research. Watch tutorials. Read forums. Ask questions. You're about to make a financial investment which may or may not be a big deal (depending on your budget), but you're going to make a HUGE investment of time. This stuff doesn't go quickly.
6. Just like with plumbing or carpentry, measure twice and cut once. Actually, measure several times. When you get that first wire in the connector, shut down your machine, remove the original cable and put your custom one in place. Thread it through and make sure it is long enough.
7. Plan for mistakes and wasted materials. Realize that every time you snip off a bad crimp, you're eating time, money and wire length. I'd recommend calculating everything you think you'll need (24-pin ATX mobo connector means 24 wires and each one is going to be 20" long, so that's 480" which is 40' of wire)... then add 30% for mistakes.
8. Make every wire a little too long. It's easy to fix a wire that's too long, but they still haven't made a good cable stretcher, lol.
9. Find a good work area where you can have good posture. Doing it on the couch with your stuff on the coffee table while you watch TV is great until your back is hurting from being stooped over the whole time.

So, those are some of the lessons I learned. There were others, too, but these are the ones that stand out.

 

[Theocnoob]

Pics! Pics! PICS!!

 

[Tweaked1024]

Well I do agree with it all, and really wish they could make a cable stretcher. I have wired electrical panels for automation equipment, I used to be an OEM builder for custom automation. A pegboard for making wire harnesses is usefull in a few ways. One, it will cradle or hold the wires for you and two, it gives a visual representation as you work outside the box. Hehe small funny there, ok I giggled that's what really matters. And then it will also help in lengths since you usually measure more than twice to create the board. In addition, this is something you can plan and reuse for other projects.

 

[Soyo Boy]

whoa, thorough. Great read, and good job... but pics!

 

[wonko]

Hey, guys... if you want to see pics, there's a link in the top of the post which goes to my build log.

If you don't want to scroll up, go to Wonko's Build Log.