Untidy cables !

chipmunk

Does anyone have any brilliant method of managing the pile of unsightly cables that trail down the back of our plasma TV set-up. We have connected: home cinema system, X-Box, Wii, Sky box etc. not to mention the aerial cables and speaker wires and the power cables for all these gadgets etc. There is a built-in cable grip on the back of the TV so they all come down from there reasonably tidily but when they reach the floor, there's just this tangled mess. It drives me mad and I can't stand to see them through the shelves of the TV stand.

Plus, my young, mischievous cat thinks it's great fun to sit behind there having a good old chew on them. When we took the Christmas tree down, we discovered the reason for the lights not working as she'd gnawed right through the cable. Good job they were on a transformer but I bet it still gave her a bit of a tingle.:eek:

I've looked at the sprial cable tidy you can buy but as some cables are much shorter than others, I can't quite imagine how it works. What does everyone else do ?

d900

a mix of cable ties / trunking and hiding them before other gadgets

best thing to do is get a dedicated stand/cupboard thing for them so any cables are hidden at the rear of the unit while all your toys live inside on the shelving

Traveller1981

I want to go down the dedicated cupboard route for all my kit - does any one have any suggestions of standalone units to use? My main gripe is the power bars for the xbox, wii etc.

d900

depeneds
A. what u want to put in it (plan for the future)
B. how much space u have in the room

get browsing and measuring

rev229

I used some black pond tubing from B&Q its about an inch in diameter, just slice down the middle and put the cables in. I then used cable ties around it when cables needed to come out at differnt places. This keeps the other cables in the tube. Good idea is to lable the plug and the cable on the bit nearest the item so you know what is what when something stops working. HTH

27col

If you are not intending to move the various electronic boxes it might be an idea to shorten all the cables as much as possible. That will immediately remove part of the problem. You could also get some plastic trunking, of a decent size to fix to the wall and enclose the cables. Paint it the same colour as the wall. The spiral cable covers never seem to do a great deal of good. labelling the plugs is a very good idea as well. I imagine this must be quite a problem for many people. There is no definitive solution to it.