Making a cable organizer - from sketch to prototype to market

Making a cable organizer - from sketch to prototype to market

Are you a wrapper or a shover?

I work in video production and travel every month with 3 cases of gear full of little devices.  A lot of it needs power and the problem I'm working on is the annoying mess of cables each of them bring.

Yeah, I can wrap them neatly and tuck them into their proper place, but sometimes I'm in a rush and need to shove everything into any available spot. 

And then there are the power prongs... those common little silver tips that can scratch up other gear. They're also another piece that can easily become a single point of failure in my productions if broken.

What to make?  First, let's see what's on the market:

Wire ties? Sloppy looking... Zip-ties? Nah... Velcro?  so tacky and common.  It's typical to wrap velcro around a cable once, then coil up the rest of the cable before wrapping it all up with the remaining velcro. It's great for many cases, but we're 10xOCD. 

We know we can't compete with this deal, but ours will be specific for paranoid, OCD travelers with lots of gear.  How? 

  1. I really, really need things to be color coded AND labeled.  OCD compliant? Check!
  2. I CANNOT let the prongs break, so the organizer will guard the prongs when packaged. Paranoia approved? Check!
  3. Chance of mix-up? Unlikely... but I need a way to label my cable. This is super-uber-emely important because someone tried to help me set up equipment the signal flow looked like this:  Wrong power adapter = too much power --> HDMI splitter ---> projector + capture card --> onto plan B.

To be continued (on the sketch pad!)

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