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Dealing w/ Massively Multiplying Power Cables? 85

Posted by Cliff from the breeding-like-rabbits dept.
Darius Jedburgh asks: "Wireless networking is all very well but network cables make up only a small proportion of the cables in my house. When I come home ,I plug in my GBA Micro, PowerBook, Palm, cellphone and iPod to recharge alongside camera, and other devices. Meanwhile I have power adapters for PCs, routers, access points, cable modems, monitors and external hard drives. Every time I buy a new gadget there's another cable (or two) to install. How do people keep this proliferation under control? Are there any products available to help to organize and ease the distribution of power at home? Does anyone know of novel ideas in power distribution in current development that might make things easier in the future?"
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Dealing w/ Massively Multiplying Power Cables? More

Dealing w/ Massively Multiplying Power Cables?

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  • Uh (Score:4, Funny)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:15PM (#14149949) Homepage
    Just a thought, but ... a powerstrip?

    • surge supressor strip + zip ties/velcro strapping.

      keep it clean, and only have cables as long as they need to be.
      • My problem with this solution is that some people are moving hardware around a lot, or like me, just can never get something that looks nice like that, nice for very long.

        No matter how hard I try, when I take it apart, it looks like a rat's nest.

    • If the power cables are multiplying on their own, why not consider spaying/neutering them?

  • A big desk and power strips (Score:4, Interesting)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:16PM (#14149956) Homepage
    I've tried the universal power adapters, I've tried docking stations, I've even tried to replace my multiple gadgets with a does-it-all-pda-camera-phone. Nothing worked too well.

    The best solution I've found was to buy a larger desk (I use an old library table) with three powerstrips on the floor under it. To keep the cables from sliding off the desk I have about a dozen little white plastic self-adhesive clips stuck on the back of the desk, each with a cable going thru it.

  • Inductive charging (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zfalcon ( 69659 )
    If manufacturers would use a common inductive charging system, that would definitely be a good solution.

    [bbc.co.uk]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2861987.stm [bbc.co.uk]

    • Re:Inductive charging (Score:2, Interesting)

      by harrkev ( 623093 )
      I am not sure that inductive technology would ever take off... It seems rather inefficient would make any device using it more expensive.

      But how about manufacturers getting together and coming up with a couple of common voltage/plug combinations? Maybe every house should have a power supply capable of supplying +6V on one size of plug, and +12V on another size. Then, every device could just use one of those?

      Of course, you still have problem like varying current capabilites. A power supply capable of rec
      • I don't usually reply to myself, but.......

        In the grand-parent post, there is a link to a BBC article. Here is a quote from the article:
        The company hopes to see the first pads on sale by the end of the year, costing between $25 and $50.
        It is very interesting that the article came out in March 1993, so we should have seen these for sale by December of 2003. It is now almost two years past this deadline, and I still don't see these at Best Buy yet.

      • Re:Inductive charging (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fishybell ( 516991 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .llebyhsif.> on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @06:31PM (#14151446) Homepage Journal
        You seem to be forgetting one important point blocking truly universal power: the buck.

        Have you ever lost a cell phone charger, or needed a second one? You know what I'm talking about then. The blasted things cost (and apparently sell) for $30 to $50 from the cell company. Even off brand ones will cost you $15 or more. With some sort of universal power mechanism (splash pad, dc power at the plug, etc) many businesses lose a revenue stream.

        It's very, very unlikely to happen any time soon.

        • "With some sort of universal power mechanism (splash pad, dc power at the plug, etc) many businesses lose a revenue stream."

          And with some sort of universal power mechanism, many businesses could discover a new revenue stream.

          Somebody's got to make adapters for old products to use the new pad chargers...
          Someone could get rich making more efficient and smaller pads... Decorator pads, pads for the car (built into the dash board, perhaps?), etc, etc...

          There's always a way to make money.

        • The economics are there for universal power (Score:5, Interesting)

          by plover ( 150551 ) * on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:06PM (#14163138) Homepage Journal
          You are only looking at chargers, though. Consider instead the fixed devices with power requirements under my desk right now. Cable modem, router, 3 USB hubs, three printers, a film scanner, a set of speakers, a weather station receiver, and a TV tuner. Each of those came with a brick because it needs power, and there is no local source they could count on. These companies could all save the cost of the bricks if they could count on the users having a universal power supply.

          If a universal power system were widely adopted, all of these bricks could go away. The device makers would have every incentive to not include a brick with each device (cost, weight, package size, etc.)

          The almighty buck is an economic incentive only for the brickmakers -- they want to sell lots of power bricks. But they only sell wholesale to the device makers. They don't sell to the consumers, the device makers do. The device makers have it in their economic interest to offer the lowest price, not to sell a brick. If they could save two dollars by not buying bricks, they could drop their prices by one dollar and still pocket one dollar for themselves.

          There is already a standard out there: USB PlusPower for cash registers. They've incorporated USB backward compatible piggybacked high-current +5VDC, +12VDC and +24VDC connectors. Several years ago some large retail chain stores refused to accept a half-dozen power bricks under each cash register, and demanded of IBM that they develop a way to power the many peripherals each cash register needs (scanners, printers, mag stripe readers, PIN pads, cash drawers, scales, etc.) NCR and Fujitsu added their support for a standard, and USB PlusPower was the result. All the large-player peripheral makers support it now, too. (Here's a sales document for a USB PlusPower hub for your PC that explains the standard. [digi.com]

          From the document: "The USB PlusPower design provides the following voltage and current

          • +5 volts DC at up to 6 amps per connector (up to 30 Watts)
          • +12 volts DC at up to 6 amps per connector (up to 72 Watts)
          • +24 volts DC at up to 6 amps per connector (up to 144 Watts)"

          Consumers need to do the same thing, but as of yet have never organized and demanded such a thing. It's considerably tougher to do at a consumer level. Consumers have never organized very well. And there are very few cash register manufacturers in comparison to all the motherboard and system builders out there. There are very few "large customers" that can use their buying power to influence the industry.

      • The only way there will be a decent standard for the low voltage stuff is if the Underwriters Laboratories gets involved with it and they won't touch it unless someone can point out just how many house fires are started by cheap or poorly mixed wall warts.

        From what I can see there are getting to be fewer common sizes these days. Regulated 5V is going away and 12V 1 and 2 amp are still common. Inkjets like odd power levels and phones like enough to drop it to 3.3V.

        If UL had a standard for the common sizes
    • Screw the little pad thingie.

      Let's get Tesla Coils everywhere.
      I'd love to see those things zapping away at all the electrical devices, charging and scorching them with terrific zapping noises.

      I also want one of those Jacob's Ladder spark things, but that really doesn't have anything to do with this story.
  • I bought several of these [cyberguys.com] and hung them off the back of my computer, and now everything hangs in midair. It isn't a complete answer, I still have several dozen power warts hanging there, but at least they are off the floor and it is easier to keep things clean and tidy.

  • Solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hamster Of Death ( 413544 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:25PM (#14150045)
    Buy less crap that you don't -really- need.

    • Mod parent up.

      Never buy anything that needs to be painted, fed or recharged. Another way to reduce the mess is to buy larger computer cases that hold more stuff, thus reducing the need for a lot of external doodads.

      Also if you haven't used it in a year, give it away (maybe to a charity) so that you can write it off.

    • I'm sure you can aim higher than merely satisfying your needs.
    • ... by cutting down the environental costs of keeping your unnecessary stuff running, manufacturing it in the first place and disposing of it when you want to upgrade to the next new-fangled gadget.
    • Buy less crap that you don't -really- need.

      OK OK, I can do without a few of my gadgets, but THE ELECTRONIC DANCING HAMSTER STAYS!

  • Use your car... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MalaclypseTheYounger ( 726934 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:29PM (#14150098) Journal
    Dunno if this will help at all, but most new cars today have 3 or 4 cigarette-lighter adapters. I never charge my phone in a house/office anymore, I only charge it in my car during my commutes, and it never runs out of juice. I imagine you could do this with a few things (GBA, palm?)

    My blackberry, I charge that off my USB port off my laptop. So no power cord for that. It helps a little knowing I can use any USB port to charge up.

    As for everything else, good luck. I still have a mess of cables on my floor, and not planning on doing anything about it.

    • Re:Use your car... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jorkapp ( 684095 ) <jorkapp@nOSpAm.hotmail.com> on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @05:12PM (#14150523)
      I never charge my phone in a house/office anymore, I only charge it in my car during my commutes, and it never runs out of juice.

      FYI, the electricity your car generates isn't "free-lunch" electricity, and is actually quite expensive.

      When you put a strain in the alternator, the induction coils require more power to output a constant amount of electricity - which is compensated by revving up the engine. So by plugging in 3 or 4 devices to a 12V plug, you are really spending more money by burning more gasoline. At current gasoline prices, vehicle electricity costs somewhere around $0.30-$0.50 per Kilowatt-Hour whereas the US national average for utility electricity in August 2005 was $0.10 per kWh.

      Sure it's convenient, but it's also far more expensive than what you pay to use 120VAC wall outlets. For maximum savings, take your 120VAC power adapters to work, and charge your devices at work.

      My blackberry, I charge that off my USB port off my laptop. So no power cord for that. It helps a little knowing I can use any USB port to charge up.

      The "trickle charge" you get from a USB port takes up to 10 times longer to fully recharge the device, and the charge isn't of good quality either. When I trickle charge my Palm Zire 21, I can usually only get about 2 days heavy usage out of it, whereas a plug-in charge lasts about 4 or 5 days. It's a case of preference - conveniently recharge on laptop every couple days or plug in your device every few days.

      As for everything else, good luck. I still have a mess of cables on my floor, and not planning on doing anything about it.

      Amen, brother.
      • The +5v usb charge on my razr seems to be just as good as the +5v charge from the wall wart (which is just 5Vdc terminated into a mini-usb plug).

        charging is quick either way and lasts plenty long.

      • FYI, the electricity your car generates isn't "free-lunch" electricity, and is actually quite expensive.

        Ahh, but if an enterprising hacker were to only close the DC circuit when the car was breaking (and the car wasn't a hybrid...)
        • Ahh, but if an enterprising hacker were to only close the DC circuit when the car was breaking [sic](and the car wasn't a hybrid...)

          I do that exact thing with my brake lights (although I admit it was a standard feature, so I can't take much credit).

      • Not like a few hundered mA will really impact your fuel economy. Maybe if you charge your laptop/cell phone/pda or whatever the current will become somewhat of a load.
      • For maximum savings, take your 120VAC power adapters to work, and charge your devices at work.

        I bet you were the one who got this [yahoo.com] implemented.

  • Power Squid (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MacBrave ( 247640 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:33PM (#14150135) Journal
    How about the Power Squid [extremetech.com]? Looks pretty nifty.......
  • you may have heard of wi-max. It will expand your wireless capability to the max. This will allow power to be transmitted to supporting devices through microwaves inside your house. Initial tests have been successfull, however there seam to be some safety concerns. ;)
  • I have a lot of wall worts, so I found the power squid handy. Picked one up at Fry's for $15.

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/77e6/ [thinkgeek.com]
    • I had something similar to that, but home-made. Microcenter had those 3-prong 6" extension cords on sale for $0.99 a few years ago and I picked up 8 of them and plugged them into a nice powerstrip that I had laying around. Now I can plug in all of my cool gadgets and not waste plugs on the powerstrip.

      --Mike

  • One other point.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Myself ( 57572 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:54PM (#14150331) Journal
    All those chargers represent "phantom loads", since they draw a little power and warm themselves up just a little, even when there's nothing connected to the output.

    Make yourself a charging shelf, somewhere in the house. Near the front door is a fine place, since you'll want to grab the phone and PDA on your way out. Put all the chargers there, on a switched power strip. When you're not home, turn it off.
    • I have a powerstrip with individual switches on my desk that I only plug something into when it is needed. I've thought about shortening the cables too, but I'm sure I'd screw it up in some way. So many of the wall warts in my house have about a 1.5 metre cable and end up making a mess on my desk, but I only really need about 20cm.
      • "I've thought about shortening the cables too, but I'm sure I'd screw it up in some way. So many of the wall warts in my house have about a 1.5 metre cable and end up making a mess on my desk, but I only really need about 20cm."

        Just fold up the wire until the remaining length is what you need, then put a rubber band around the folded-up part.
        • Two rubber bands, one at either end, or even better, velcro cable ties. I've done the same thing with the CAT-5e that the guys use when the come over for LAN games, since they all sit very close to the switch.

          Even better, put it all in a box with a hole in it so the cables can run out and one power cable can run in. Label the end of each cable so you know which is which (presumably he already does this because sometimes it is hard to tell one power pack from the other at a glance). This is using the sam
        • I do, but I'd rather have a short cable than a solenoid on my desk.

    • Make yourself a charging shelf, somewhere in the house. Near the front door is a fine place, since you'll want to grab the phone and PDA on your way out. Put all the chargers there, on a switched power strip.

      I just built a charging shelf in my laundry room - all the chargers (clearly labeled) for my drill, phone, screwdriver, etc... etc.. are stored in a drawer beneath a shelf with a switched power strip attached. Only three chargers are not there - the chargers for my mustache/beard trimmer and my wifes

  • You can charge the vast majority of devices with 5/6, 9, and 12 VDC. I did it with only two power supplies. I used an old AT power supply for 5/6 and 12 volts, and I built a 5A 9V power supply as well. Then you just solder on whatever connectors your equipment needs. Mine only needs one wall plug since the 9V one draws power from the AT PSU.
  • I've got a retractable cable from Gomadic [gomadic.com] with tips for both my cell phone and my PDA. That lets me charge from my laptop with minimal clutter, which is really handy for travel.

    There are also a number of USB power adapters (for AC, car, air, or all of the above [boxwave.com]) out there in case you don't want to charge from your laptop.

    I have no affiliation with any of these companies other than using their products.

  • Anything that can hold wires in neat bunches is a plus. Wire ties are not so convenient, but I love those velcro wire-wraps. Once your cables are neat, it doesn't matter if you have 20 as you can easily tell where they all go.

    Unless there's a complete overhaul of the electronics industry forcing everyone to use the same voltage and same connector for devices, there's not much more I can tell you. Just buy a big power strip and put all the wall-worts on it and kick it under a desk where it can happily rai
  • One or two of these hanging off your wall will do you good http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4215604?site=sr:S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG [outpost.com]

  • USB? (Score:2, Informative)

    by sarabob ( 544622 )
    More and more of those gadgets will charge off USB, so get yourself a powered USB hub and get going.

    Nintendo (SP/DS/Micro)? Check.

    IPod? Check.

    PSP? Check.

    Palm? Check.

    Lots of phones will charge over USB, too (nokia, many motorola, possibly more...)

    • You're winning! I was unaware that there were USB chargers for the DS and GBA Micro. I just need a powered USB hub with lots of ports.
    • You won. I've just ordered a 7 port powered hub and I may even have found a USB power connector for my phone. I didn't really expect a useful answer from ask.alashdot.org but it seems my expectations were set too low!
  • My current rig has 3 workstations, 3 monitors, 1 pda, 1 cell, 2 ipods all at my desk. Not even endluding NAS, VOIP device, cable modem, firewall/router, switch, wireless access point and the requisite UPS. My soluton for this electronic jungle? (Five) of The ever popular PowerSquid [thinkgeek.com] by Power Sentry [powersentry.com], (Two) Belkin 10-Outlet Surgemaster Gold [belkin.com], (Two) Cable-Safe's Cable Manager Kit [cable-safe.com]. The combination works well, I'd recommend it.

  • I recommend... (Score:3, Informative)

    by B00yah ( 213676 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @05:36PM (#14150793) Homepage
    This [cdw.com], for the laptop/ipod/phone/pda anyway. It can power all three off of one plug, and works in cars/planes. Very handy.
  • It is obviously way to hard to say "Dealing WITH massively multiplying power cables?" So many more letters...
  • Here's an article from '03 about charging multiple devices at once via magnetic induction.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2861987.stm [bbc.co.uk]

    It's almost '06 now, and I don't know where this has gone since then... which may or may not say something about the technology, the company, the market, and/or my inherent laziness at looking this shit up on google.

    :)

  • MASKING TAPE!

    The true geeks tool. I have 2x4plug powerstrips behind my desk, this has my monitor and pc plugged in then many more others.

    I have just ran these altogether around the back of my desk, and coming up the side. Then i've banged aload of masking tape over the lot, holding it all perfectly in place. I can't charge everything at the same time, but i never normally need to.

    Works for me even if it does look crap!
  • My new phone uses a 5V @ 350 mA charger.

    I just bought today some USB cables to splice the home and car chargers to have a female USB plug on the end, which will accept the male USB -> tiny DC plug adapter on the other end. This will allow me to carry a very small USB-->DC adapter with me and charge the phone wherever I can find a USB port (home, work, and travelling laptop, basically).

    Just about anything that is low-power and needs 5V or less* could be plugged into a USB port.

    * For less than 5V a dio
  • One possible (though not inexpensive) solution is to use Radio Shack's Adaptaplug products. You will still need one adapted for every discrete voltage you require, and they'll need to be beefy ones, probably. But each transformer has a socket on the end, like this [radioshack.com], which you can then split as many times as necessary with a bunch of these [radioshack.com] or these [radioshack.com]. Purchase the appropriate tip for each of your devices, connect it to a lead from the appropriate voltage source, and you should be able to drastically reduce
    • and 3.3V if its an ATX unit

      but one important thing to watch out for: if any of the devices connect to each other you might wan't to do some testing with a multimeter before blindly plugging them into the same PSU (or two seperate earth referenced psus) then you don't wan't to short out a large psu via devices ground lines.

  • ...she's the spam queen, loves the stuff, signs up for every freebie she can find via snail mail. One of the gifts she got from some bozo magazine place was a box full of basic black one foot long heavy duty extension cords, sold as a power strip adapter-extender. I got them as a geek gift for B-day. Works great, take your normal power strip, slap these things on, and you can have wall to wall wallwarts lined up all off the same strip, and being flexible you can arrange them to taste, and being very short t
  • I got fed up with the situation under my desk, so I bought a couple of large (12 outlet) power strips. I got the kind that have six tradtional duplex outlets side by side, with space for wall warts around each. One of the power strips is plugged into my UPS, the other goes straight into the wall. I screwed them up high on the back walls under the desk, and used lots of twist ties and velcro cable straps to contain the mess.

    I also bought a label printer (Brother P-Touch, I think) and I labeled every war

  • what i found was that all my devices ran on 5VDC or 12VDC. some had regulated and some unregulated power, so i figured that they could all be run on two regulated rails, one at each voltage. a sola dual-output regulated supply was available on ebay. i added the AC jack, fusing, and power indicator; the eight DC outputs are to be installed. i chose RCA jacks because there is no risk of shorts and they are cheap and easy to wire. the idea is to make a series of short RCA plug to DC coax barrel connector cabl

  • When I come home, I plug in my GBA Micro, PowerBook, Palm, cellphone and iPod to recharge alongside camera, and other devices.

    That's a lot of stuff to haul around, isn't it? I finally ditched my Palm (after using them for seven years) and sync'd my Address Book and iCal to my iPod. That was the easy part: most of what I entered into my Palm was something someone else was asking me to do. Solution? "Hmmm. Maybe. Send me an email with these details and I'll prioritize that with my other tasks." Presto: fe

  • Too bad noone has succeeded in making wireless electricty. Several people have tried though. http://www.mind-course.com/wireless.html [mind-course.com]
  • To solve the wall-wart issue, there's always the Power Strip Liberator [google.com]. I always ask for these for xmas, and I always seem to run out near the end of the year.
  • Sprint [sprint.com] has standardized the power connectors [sprintpcsaccessories.com] for every phone they cell, independent of manufacturer. I, for one, am glad to see an end to the "you-must-buy-our-overpriced-accessory" extortion.

    We need to standardize the selection of voltages to increments of 1.5 volts (the nominal voltage of a standard battery), then you would have "only" 16 different voltages to deal with between 1.5 and 24V. Then you standardize to ONLY use DC voltage (no low-voltage AC power supplies), then you standardize the power plugs
  • This is not my idea, I saw it somewhere online (or was it in the magazine ReadyMade?), but it was pretty clever.

    Someone took a good sized flower pot and ran a dollar store extension cord into it. Inside, they connected each of their AC-DC chargers. They cut a fairly opaque piece of lexan to the shape of the inside of the flowerpot. They drilled holes for each of the power supply plugs and ran them out 6 inches or so. Then, the gear you have to charge can all lay inside the pot on its lid, and be plugged in
  • What's so terrible about cables anyway. The last time this was discussed on here, someone suggested mounting your powerstrips on the ceiling, so that the wires hang down to meet your work surface. That seems clever to me.. much reduced tangling, and you get the cyberpunk look on a budget..
  • Remember Tesla?
  • The answer is simple - PoE (Power Over Ethernet) [wikipedia.org]. Just give everything a cat5 connection - they've done it with electric shavers just for kicks. Yes, you have to Cat5 everything - but who cares as in a few years you'll have to connect everything in your house to the internet anyways.

    (but it beats have wallwarts everywhere)

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