Sorry if this is in the wrong plae, did not know where to put it. Is there anyway to ball up the IDe cables into round wires instead of those fat flat wires. They take up so much space and sine they're flat they also reduce the airflow in my case and heat up. I've seen you can buy rounded IDE cables but I'm a real cheapa-ass since I've never got more then a few bucks or so on me since parents don't think it's good for their son to be able to buy stuff since he's not 18 yet and believe I have to work for my money with a real job... ironicaly, I'm not old enough yet... just need one more year... So any help on this would be appreciated, thanxs
Cheapest and easyest way is to use twisty ties and crumple the cable into a roundish shape and twisty tie it. If you wanted to, you can just use a knife and carefully seperate the wires and it will bunch together easyer.
Just balling it up might cause some trouble with data errors. The 80 strand IDE connectors are set up so that every other strand is connected to ground, this helps eliminate cross talk between the data lines. *note this is just my understanding of the cables, if it is incorrect please correct me
That's right. I recommend just folding the cable over a few times like you're making a paper fan, and zip-tying it. I don't think it's worth cutting the cable because it's harder to do than you think. Luckily I had a spare when I tried it....
Sounds interesting, maybe I'll try that this weekend when I'll have some time if people don't complain about the flash animation I made for them
Not really, the way "professional" 80 strand rounded cables are made, is just a machine that crunches up the flat cable into a plastic housing, and these do not seem to have any problems. I guess the ground shielding effect of the wires on each side of the data lead is enough to eliminate crosstalk even if another wire or another part of the same wire is right ontop of it, think about it, if what you suggested is true, you would get errors from having 2 80 strand wires next to each other. Allso, i have used 40 strand cables for ATA133 transfer with no errors, the extra shielding is just an extra precaution, not an absolute nessesity.
Eh? Professionally made round cables, at least the cheap $2 ones I bought from SVC were machine wound, not crunched flat cables. As for sperating the IDE cable strands, I recommend a rounded exacto blade. It's pretty easy if you have experience doing model working or the like. Or if you have extra IDE or floppy cables. Like me for example, I have hundreds. Literally.
Cutting the 40 strand cables apart is easy, but with the 80 strand ones the wires aren't thick enough to "guide" the blade down the gap between the connectors, which makes it easy to accidentally expose the wire.
I personally fold my IDE cables round each other, so that they are flat, and dont take up much space, they lie flat against the CDRom drives and come straight down to the hard drives, and have the mainboard dable comming out at 90 degrees.
The trick is to cut only a short length and then pull the rest apart gently, that way there's little risk of exposing the wire unless your hand is extremely shaky or you don't take your time.
Also, if you decide to cut the cable, make sure to do it on a nice flat surface. You could also do it in your hands, but doing it that way makes your finger prints look a bit wierd
yep i set the cable down and make a small cut that i slowly pull apart between every 3 wires and then once ive pulled them down the length i wrap it with electrical tape
Allright, I'll see if I can get a-hold of a spare IDE cable or steal it from someon- wait I didn't say that... I'll try that at home then, thanxs for the help, and I'll try not to do it in my palm
what i did is just attach one end to a drive and then just kinda turn the other end clockwise to get a nice little tubee-like shape its really works great
Yeah, I tried to make rounded cables about 2 years ago from 80 strand IDEs . . . . . all I got were a lot of exposed wires!! In my defense, though, I was watching TV at the time and cutting them on a TV tray on the couch! Oh, Well, I had extras, but if I had to do it again, I would seperate at every 2-3 wires, it gives you more surface to work with. or just fan fold them like I saw Johnbus posted earlier, and zip the 'em. If you do decide to cut them, get some split-type wire loom from an auto parts store, that stuff is cheap and looks professional! ~SongCloud~
