Anything Forums

I was thinking of getting these since they might halp me save some space and since I can transfer them to a newer computer, they would last a while and maybe be worth the money. Is it possible to take my old IDE cables and roll them up

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:7952

I've heard of this, you simply splice each wire individually and you can twist them in a bunch. Use hockey tape or any other colored tape to add color.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:7961

I actually just tried this now with an old FDD cable. I split 4 sections of about 8 or so wires together and I dont see how it woulndt work. Maybe I can save money this way. I just need to use an exac-o knife instead of my pocket knife,

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:7963

Yep, and be extra carful not to cut the wires by accident! Just cut a small strip and then you can peel it off.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:7965

Red Squirrel wrote: Yep, and be extra carful not to cut the wires by accident! Just cut a small strip and then you can peel it off.

peeling it worked fine. that is how I got the idea since there is the twisted cable in the floppy one.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:7967

HAHAH! it worked !! it worked. For the floppy drive that is. Worked so smooth that I cut myself up a HDD cable and I think I might try that soon as well.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:7988

ah, rounded cables. There was a little bit of a debate about this at one time. Some said the ribbon cables were made that way for a reason... to reduce the electromagnetic interference (EMI) between the wires which could slow things down... which is actually part of the reasoning behind the 80 cables for faster drives [only half of the wires are used for actual data, the rest are ground wires.] However the newer rounded cables that you can buy are actually set up in twisted pair [like networking or phone cable] in which the twisting is done in a precise way which actually cancels out EMI.

Now I'm not saying it won't work, and at worst your out a cable. just the obligatory warning. Before rounded cables became widely available, a lot of overclockers were slicing up cables with exacto knives and tieing them together to increase airflow, but few do it now. They're pretty easy to find and their not all that expensive. If you can spare the cash, I'd get the professionally made ones, but again if you try it out on your own and it doesn't work that well, you're really not out that much. cables are cheap.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:7990

yeah, I figured that I would try it myself first. I have seen the "professional" ones, and they do look nice, but I have extra cable laying around. I do have an 80 wire cable which I do not think that I can splice, but FDD and 40 cables IDE's are easy. Right now the FDD cable is working fine, I have read from a disk and written to it. I just have to try the IDE one now.


Oh and also, my case is super small so these definately help.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8023

Yeah, the twisting is not a bad idea. When I worked at the telco (my co-op is now done) someone shows me how this concept works, it sort of bounces off the electrons, I forget exactly how.

I never knew 80 wire cables were actually just 40 grounds... I thought it was a whole different set of pins and all, but if it's just for grounding, I suppose you can use a 80 wire one with a 40 pin device correct?

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8046

Red Squirrel wrote: I never knew 80 wire cables were actually just 40 grounds... I thought it was a whole different set of pins and all, but if it's just for grounding, I suppose you can use a 80 wire one with a 40 pin device correct?

why do you think the older ide cables and the 80 pin cables are interchangeable? They work pretty much the same way, and you can use an older cable with a newer drivemobo, the mobo simply slows the drive down to ata33 speeds [I think, it could be ata 66, I forget].

As for the twisting, I always thought that it had to do with exactly how much it was twisted so that the position of the twists put the electromagnetic fields of the two wires 180 degrees out of phase, thus cancelling each other out. I could be wrong though. I was taught this at one point in a networking class once, but I kinda forgot it...

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8061

manadren wrote:

Red Squirrel wrote: I never knew 80 wire cables were actually just 40 grounds... I thought it was a whole different set of pins and all, but if it's just for grounding, I suppose you can use a 80 wire one with a 40 pin device correct?

why do you think the older ide cables and the 80 pin cables are interchangeable? They work pretty much the same way, and you can use an older cable with a newer drivemobo, the mobo simply slows the drive down to ata33 speeds [I think, it could be ata 66, I forget].

As for the twisting, I always thought that it had to do with exactly how much it was twisted so that the position of the twists put the electromagnetic fields of the two wires 180 degrees out of phase, thus cancelling each other out. I could be wrong though. I was taught this at one point in a networking class once, but I kinda forgot it...

errr too much stuff, even though I enjoy reading it. Well, as for now, I have a homemade roudned IDE cable in my linux box running a hard drive, my OS one that is and it is running fine ( if the forum is still up, you know it's fine). On my other computer ( this one) I have the cable on the FDD and even thought I rarely use it, it saved me some space since I could use the cable as a rope almost and hang the other cords neater on it. Everything seems to be working fine, but my next tackle, is the IDE cable with a slave and a master connector on it

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8510

you were getting too much good information i see.

i did not want to tell you the same thing they did. but i will just give you the common poor mans english of it.


1. you can do it.

2. you will take a chance on cutting a wire which can take up to an hours to make a perfect cut and keep the same amount of insulation on each wire.

3. there are cables with 80 negitive wires in to help for shielding.

4. what good does it do when you can buy them now.

5. it is fun to try you self to make them if you have extra cables.

6. this helps in only small mini towers or horaz.. desktops where there is no extra room and the flat ones block the air flow.

7. that is more then enough for me to compress into my language







Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8519

well I knew all of that. And honestly, it's not hard to cut the wires. I make a small slice, and then just peel the rest of the wire away. i did cut 1 or 2 insulation on the wires, but I put some tape around it, and it works fine.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8539

i just looked online at best buy's site and they have all kinds of round cables in the range of 12 us dollars to 18 us dollars. maybe higher but i did not see the complete set of pages.



Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8547

not bad, I have seen them as well, some come in clear plastic casing so that is cool as well. i think I will stick with my ghetto version until ( knocks on wood) they force me to get a "professional" kind.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:908, old post ID:8556