┌────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ What │ Where │ ╞════════════════╪═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╡ │ GIT Repository │ https://gitlab.com/snowgoonspub/cable-management.git[1] │ ├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Thingiverse │ https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4588485/files[2] │ └────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Working from home during Covid has meant accumulating even more electrical junk on my desk. And with all that electrical junk comes more and more cabling...
It had started to become an absolute eyesore, and bearing in mind that I also need to reserve a certain amount of room on the desk for Princess Sashenka, I was also running out of space to work.
{{< figure src="img/princess-sashenka.jpg" caption="Princess Sashenka" captionPosition="right">}}
Princess Sashenka also posed another problem; she'd discovered that my desktop machine - a Mac Mini - gets comfortably warm, and it had become her new favourite place to sleep in the day. Cute though that is, felines are apparently not the ideal cooling solution for your CPU.
So, I set about doing something about it with the trusty 3D Printer.
So, I designed some simple cable management trays; they clamp on to the back of the desk, so you can hang the trailing cable mess under the desk, but neatly:
{{< figure src="img/closeup.jpg" caption="Cables, conquered" captionPosition="right">}}
The smaller trays are also designed to support small electrical devices like the power brick for my monitor, or an 8-port switch.
But on top of (or underneath?) that, I figured it would be neat if I could actually hang my Mac Mini down there, out of the way of *pisicii*, and freeing up a bit of desk space. So, there is a larger version designed with the aid of Fusion360's static load simulation tools to support a load of 7.5N, with plenty of room to spare:
{{< figure src="img/static-load.png" caption="Static load simulation, 7.5 Newtons..." captionPosition="right">}}
Two of them should be plenty to support the approximately 1.5Kg weight of a Mac Mini... Of course, the static simulation in Autodesk is for a generic solid plastic, which is not quite the same animal as 3D Printed PLA, but in practice the measured deflection of the 3D printer part with a 50% infill matches that predicted by the simulation, so I'm quite comfortable that this part will not send my computer crashing to the ground.
{{< figure src="img/actual-deflection.jpg" caption="...and actual performance, 3D Printed part with 50% infill" captionPosition="right">}}
Absolutely you can. Anyone is free to download and print their own, under a Creative Commons[3] Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike[4] license. You can find all the files you need to print your own over at my GitLab repo[5].
1: https://gitlab.com/snowgoonspub/cable-management.git
2: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4588485/files
3: https://creativecommons.org
4: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
5: https://gitlab.com/snowgoonspub/cable-management
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