Keep the cables tidy

[rosalan]

I have always carefully coiled every cable, they look 'ship shape' but seem still to get into a real tangle every time I need to use them. As I have a couple of electric bikes and several phones, tablets etc coming off my inverter,
I have constantly battled with each cable every time. So
I tried leaving them tangled. No problems now, the connection I need is always available and a lot of time saved..... it looks a mess all the time but is so much easier to use.

 

[ambulancekidd]

I've always thought that cables have a life of their own & have spent many an unhappy hour untangling them, I'll happily try your suggestion.

 

[Barclaybasher]

Cables naturally tangle and the worst thing you can do is try and untangle..... you will always find that you have to keep untangling... just leave them and they sort themselves...

 

[Gerby]

In the fire service we would use lines for many purposes and they could be up to 60 metres in length (and included guide lines used in breathing apparatus operations), the only way to ensure they never tangled was to feed them haphazardly into their storage bags, if you ever tried to coil them and then put them in a bag they would always get tangled when you tried to remove them for use.

 

[Pausim]

There are ways of coiling cables so that they do not tangle but they have to be uncoiled in a way that reverses the process. The rope coiling method used by sailors works for me because I tend to plug in one end of a cable and then pull the coils out from the other end. Others favour a reverse coiling method used by techies where you can hold both ends of the cable and let all the coils drop out. However it is easy get tangles if you get either method wrong.

The feed them into a bag haphazardly as explained by Gerby seems like a good tried and tested method.

The wind it around your hand and elbow method is guaranteed to twist and tangle the cable. My mother used to prove this on a weekly basis when she coiled up her washing line.

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[Techno]

I hang mine up by their mid point. All you need is a suitable hook for several leads

 

[maison]

I remember seeing a “scientist “ on a TV programme explaining why ropes etc get tangled.

When storing a cable/rope there are millions of ways in which it can be tangled and only one in which it is not. It is all a matter of odds.

Strangely, as Gerby says above, in the Fire Service the practice of “haphazard stowage” works.

 

[David and Sally]

As Gerby says - stuff htem into a bag. Works for water rescue lines where you throw the bag towards the victim and the rope uncoils as it flies through the air.