Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/how-to-coil-your-cables.html
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Ahh, it’s about how to make those spiral cables like old phone lines. I thought it was going to take sides on over-under vs straight coiling, a subject on which I used to have very strong opinions 
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I wonder if the coiling could be made tighter by rewinding the coil in the opposite direction (a power drill would make this go faster).
Edit: Having just watched the video, he mentions this trick at 35:00.
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In case you want to skip past ten minutes of “I hope the stream is working” and ten minutes of a makecode arcade game he’s working on:
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When I was a kid I loved making twisted pair with brightly coloured solid hookup wire and a power drill; that became the dominate decorating element of our basement
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I’m always looking for the maximum usable length, not making the damned cables effectively shorter and more difficult to use when wanting to sit down with my phone plugged in or reaching for a pen.
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That’s one way to make sure you never get it straight again.
If you’re more interested in practical details like, for instance, not knotting up on you, try folding the line in half or thirds and repeat as needed. Free up as much as you need and toss a cable tie on the rest.
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May I hate this video?
A bit?
First of all, why waste so much of my precious time? This can be explained in a video of three minutes.
Second, hey, no turning point in the spiral? Recipe for coil curling disasters. Third, heating PVC cables, indoors? Yeah, hard pass. Fourth, using ice spray in an enclosed space where you just turned off your heat gun? Very hard pass, thank you very much.
Hey, I know, makers gonna make even if haters gonna hate. But please don’t hurt anyone with your videos, ok?
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yep, gonna have to side with the skeptics here. a cheap usb cable has like 30ga wires in there. cant say putting strain and heat on them will help their life or performance.
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I was thinking of the exact same thing for a hot second and then figured they probably meant actually getting a cable to be coiled. But honestly being able to properly roll up a length of cable is a very important thing to learn
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Oh my, the awful audio.
You’re likely using a compressor the wrong way to (attempt to) avoid larsen feedback; you should rather turn off any audio monitoring and just be sure the peaks won’t clip (use VU meters). If you can’t turn it off, then put a parametric equalizer, possibly before the audio monitor, or as last resort after the mike, then at low amp volume start setting its gain to +1 +2 dB max and sweep the spectrum until the speaker start squealing, then refine the frequency by reducing a bit the gain until it stops and fine tuning the eq until it starts squealing again. Once you find the perfect position where it stop oscillating either by moving up or down the freq or by reducing the gain, you’ve just found the resonance frequency of the amp+delay+feedback group, essentially an oscillator whose resonance depends on various factors, mainly the distance between mic and speaker. Now to eliminate it, just bring the gain from positive to negative, the amount of which depends on how it alters fidelity, but any small negative value will improve the audio a lot compared to this. Just be warned that this is a patch, not a solution; the best action is always to turn off audio monitors, including headphones.
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“slinky cords”
Edited to add: they aren’t spiral; they’re helical.
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Thanks for reminding me to listen to The Snow again. I just found The Snow EP complete with Windowpane on YT.
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Found this video of how it is done industrially
The main difference seems to be using an oven rather than a heat gun. Presumably they can use lower temps for longer times in an oven, preventing problems like melting the inner insulation. Also finding that sweet spot where the cable is springy rather than stiff.
I am sure getting the right materials for the insulators has a lot to do with it. Somehow I doubt that lowest common denominator PVC is the best.
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Man nobody could conceivably need to be told about winding up cables. But this whole idea of making them look so pretty is making me realize my failures.
**NOT**Way back in the day (so far back that we used blue screen for chroma key!) I studied cinematography and video production. When we finally got to start spending time in an actual TV studio, the entire first day was spent learning only two very rudimentary skills: changing 9V batteries, and coiling cables. Needless to say, us teenagers was disappointed.
Also needless to say, that day’s training turned out to be the most useful over the long term. If you ever want a second gig with a band, just coil their cables correctly at 3am.
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Yeah I was imagining dipping the coiled wire in boiling oil, resulting in very crisp, very splayed coils. Next I’m just going to hang 12 lb. of cable off a garage door spring and an 8x cable reel with a 2 lb. plushie on the end.
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