Cable management – Check.

Posted on by carl

The modular LED strip holders and a box for them were the results of a couple hours at Techshop this evening.

Modular Cable Management

Laser cutting the holders took about 27 minutes for the 88+ pieces. Then it took another 8 minutes because my wood was 24″ wide rather than the 26″ that I designed the cut pattern for and I had to recut the last column. Whoops. I brought extra stock with me for these types of things.

Cutting finished (almost).
The three types of individual pieces.
How they link together. The two holes in the arms also allow them to be hung upside down from a ceiling or tree.
An example of how the pieces will be used. They will be about a meter apart upon installation. The double holders are used where two strips plug together. In addition to the LED strip, the arm helps manage the data and electricity wiring.

Cable Management Module Management

With all those pieces I needed a box to hold them in when they aren’t installed.

The box I designed holds 88 pieces in as dense a form as I could figure out. There are 44 of the pieces that the cables and LEDs sit in, 36 cross bar legs and eight double cross bar legs. That’s enough for a piece every meter, and two at every 5 meter joining of strips.

The box took about 7 minutes to cut. It snapped together perfectly the first time. I’m pretty proud of that one since I designed all the interlocking fingers as I was drawing it in Illustrator.

Cut pieces for box
Final box with 88 pieces inside. The top snaps into place, the sides and bottom will be glued together.
One side removed before gluing to show how pieces are stacked.
Another side removed showing the stacking strategy. Note the two vertical bars in the middle that keep the stacks aligned.

The pattern on the top of the box is taken from the cutting pattern of the modular arms, so it subtly hints at what’s inside.

 

 

 

laser cut