Does anyone have any tips of guides on how to make home-made cable combs. Everywhere I have looked in the UK are either sold out or ridiculously expensive, so thought I might have a go at making them myself
Instructions make a comb similar to those CrapBag linked to: Determine wire diameter. If you are planing to sleeve the wire don't for get to include the sleeve. If you don't have calipers and don't want to buy a set you might be able to google the information. For example I was using #18 AWG unsleeved, and measured a diameter of 5/64". Add a tolerance to your measured diameter. From my example, I selected the next drill size up 3/32". The thicker your comb material is the more you will want to increase the tolerance. I think I was using 1/8" styrene (not the best material for the project). In some scrap, drill a couple test holes and check fit. Adjust the hole diameter as required. If the holes are too tight it will make it very difficult to move the combs into position. I suggest that you use a CAD program to help with layout, if you don't have one there are several free ones, Google can help. Layout the hole spacing, I recommend starting with a spacing of 1.5D on centre, where D is the hole diameter. From my example, I was using a 3/32" drill, so I started with a spacing of 9/64" on centre. Make sure you include a centre marker in the CAD layout. Alternatively if you want to match the spacing of the ATX plug use a spacing of 0.165" on centre. Print out layout at 1:1. Glue the print out (spray adhesive works well for this) to a scrape piece of material. You'll probably want to cutout the print out so you are not dealing with a whole sheet of paper. Drill the holes, test fit and look, and adjust spacing as you like. If designing for a 24 pin ATX plug I'ld initially test by only drilling 2x4 to 2x6 pattern. Repeat steps 5 to 7 until happy with the layout. Once happy with spacing then determine overall size and shape of the comb, i.e. have round corners or square. I recommend using a drill press if you have access to one. If you want a comb that you can clip the wires in then you also nee to cut out a notch to each hole. I not sure about this design as I have not attempted it.