Parametric stackable cable organizer / winder (one-way or two-way winding)

Stackable cable winder that you can parametrize to fit just your cable length! Wind only one or two sides of your cable.
2h 54m
1× print file
0.22 mm
0.40 mm
26.00 g
Creality CR-6 SE
293
1757
28
7074
updated February 11, 2025

Description

PDF

Unstable fusion360 source file

It seems like recent changes broke the model file. Since it is not the first time, I'm in the process of ditching fusion360 from my workflow altogether. I'm learning FreeCAD and will attempt a redesign of the cable winder with that software.

I hope I will be done before February 2025. I'm very sorry for the inconveniences, but I think this change is for the best. FreeCAD in an open-source software, and it deserves to be used more than the very restricted (even for hobbies) and unstable fusion360 software.

– UPDATE February 11th – 

I printed the first prototype this weekend and I'm now adjusting the parameters. You can expect the version 7.0 to be released next weekend (February 16th or 17th).

December 1st 2024 - Version 6.14 is out!

  • Reenforced top and bottom piece with a ridge
  • New “ridge_height” parameter
  • updated renders
  • updated pictures

 

In my quest for the perfect cable winder and organizer, I haven't found what I wanted. So here is a fully parametric print-in-place one.

It features a print-in-place winding mechanism, just like the remixed model, and closes with a fit snap. You can stack up as many cable organizers as you want thanks to its stackable design. The model revolves around the length of the cable you want to wind: if you decide to open up the parametric file, you will see that you can directly input your target length and the model is gonna readjust its height to be able to fit your cable in.

Figure 1.aFigure 1.b

The whole thing can be printed in one time without support. It took 2h30 on my printer using relatively low speed and a layer height of 0.22mm.

 

Table Of Content

  • Model parameters
  • Modelling approach
    • Different driving modes
  • Design decisions
    • Stack-ability
      • Why is it not the only choice?
    • Section cut analysis
    • Winding mechanism
    • Closing mechanism
      • Why is the wall so thick?
      • Changing the force required to close/open the winder
      • Pre-tensioned clips
    • Winder design
      • One-side winding
      • Minimal cable stress
      • Cable retainer
    • Cable length computation
      • Volumes
      • The cable volume problem
      • Final formulas
  • Version history

 

Model parameters

The fusion360 model is available and parametric: you can create the cable winder that suits your needs. Here is a list of the main parameters you can play with

NameValueUnitComment
cable_diameter4mmThe section diameter of your cable. It affects the center piece wavy pattern and the size of the holes in the bottom and top piece.
cable_length1500mmThe length of the cable you want to wind
external_diameter0 **mmThe diameter of the outermost internal wall of the model. The total diameter of the winder will be that plus the thickness of the walls. Can't be 0mm if external_diameter is 0mm. If set to 0mm, enable the driven mode i.e. this parameter will be automatically computed based on the other parameters.
internal_diameter40mmThe diameter of the innermost internal wall. The diameter of the winder will be that minus the thickness of the walls. *
filling_ratio0.7 see The cable volume problem section below
height12 **mmThe internal height. The total height will be that plus the thickness of the bottom and top pieces. Can't be 0mm if external_diameter is 0mm. If set to 0mm, enable the driven mode i.e. this parameter will be automatically computed based on the other parameters. It should be either 0mm, or greater than 8mm.
rotation_gap0.34mmThe small space between the center piece and the bottom piece. The smaller the less play but the harder to print.
clip_pre_tension0.15mmPre tension applied to the clips. The higher the number, the stronger the close. It represents the distance between the normal position and the tensioned one. (see Design decisions>Closing mechanism>Pre-tensioned clips for more info)
ridge_height1.5mmHeight of the ridge at the top and bottom of the cable holes. It makes the piece stronger, and reduces the size of the hole so that the cable end does not go through it.

* You should avoid making the winder smaller, as it already is at it smallest size possible while still allowing for fingers to fit in to rotate the mechanism.

** See "Modelling approach > Different driving modes" section for why it can be a 0.

 

Modelling approach

The model was designed in Fusion360. It consists only of simple operations and it can be split up in 5 sections:

  1. The main body as seen in the Section cut analysis section. Thanks to @LineArcLine for their help to make that part cleaner.
  2. The two cable holes.
  3. The stack-ability. Thanks to Cueball909 for the idea. You can disable it by right-clicking either the sketch or the revolution and clicking “suppress feature”.
  4. The center piece that winds up the cable.
  5. The closing mechanism.
  6. Placement and grouping of components so that they are ready to be uploaded to printables. The top piece is turned upside down, and the bottom and center piece are grouped together.
Different driving modes

New in v6.11. Thanks to @LineArcLine for the suggestion: Before this revision, the height was automatically computed from the user input in external_diameter. However, it was prone to stupidly thick cable winder that led to an improper winding of the cable since it wasn't spread out evenly throughout the height. Being able to drive the external_diameter from the user input height make just more sense. Nevertheless, I wanted to keep the possibility to drive the height (mainly to avoid losing a feature). Fusion 360 does not support complex parameter forms, so I used conditional formulas to create special case: setting the height or the external_diameter (only one of them) to 0mm will toggle its driven mode. The parameter that have its value at 0mm will be automatically computed with the formula given in “Design decisions > Cable length computation > Final formulas”.

 

Design decisions

Section cut analysis

The biggest part of the design was actually fairly simple to design thanks to @LineArcLine advices. The first step is to revolve a single sketch around a central axis. That sketch contains the section of the cable winder that has a few remarkable things. From top to bottom we have:

  • The ridge that allows for stack-ability (discussed in the Stack-ability section)
  • A profile that keeps the cable from pushing too hard on the top piece (more details in the Winder cable retainer section).
  • A chamfer on the right right corner to avoid the cable to  be squeezed into the corner.
  • The thick external wall to allow for the closing clips (detailed in the Closing mechanism section). The reason for the thickness is also given in the section.
  • The same chamfer at the bottom for the same reasons.
  • The rotation mechanism (more details in the Winding mechanism section).
figure 2

 

Stack-ability

This is the hot new feature of the version 6.x, and it wasn't the most easy to design. However, with the help of CueBall909, we managed to reach the perfect solution, that does not even require supports. The basic requirements for something to be stack-able is to have a groove on one side, and a ridge on the other. However, because the the top and bottom piece are printed flat-surface down, a ridge on one of the two flat surfaces would have necessitate a ton of supports since it would have been the higher than the flat surface.

Through a suggestion from CueBall909 (and a lot of tests), a ridge was added to the top part of the winder which is the only piece making contact with the bottom piece of a stacked cable organizer (in yellow in figure 3.a). To maintain the stack-ability whatever the rotation of the winder, a small part of the center piece was extruded so that the ridge can even go where the wavy section of the winder was (figure 3.b).

figure 3.afigure 3.b
Why is it not the only choice?

Stack-ability adds a ridge on top of the winder that sticks out the top surface (you can clearly see it on Figure 2). If you plan to travel or to put the cable winder in a pocket, that ridge can be quite aggressive on your textile. Hence you can find the files for the two versions: stack-able and not stack-able.

 

Winding mechanism

During printing, the central piece will be locked forever with the bottom one. This process, often referred as “print-in-place”, ensures that the central piece can rotate freely within the bottom piece without any assembly step!

You can also notice a little trick to make the separation of the central piece easier. Because it is common to have elephant foot on prints, a small chamfer has been added so that even an elephant foot would not fuse the two pieces together.

figure 4

 

Closing mechanism

Instead of a hinge, which requires a low tolerance printer and that can break off easily, it was chosen to use clips that are both strong and easy to remove. They underwent major improvements from version 5.x to version 6.x as they are now streamlined with the body, making them more protected while making the design more modern. They also are no longer 4 equally-spaced clips, but instead 2 groups of 2 clips. This ensure that the cable holes (that are now on the bottom and top piece) are aligned together. Lastly, the split in the middle of each group grant rigidity to the thin cut-out section of the bottom piece.

Figure 5
Why is the wall so thick?

That is an excellent question, congrats for having noticed that. The thickness of the wall was constrained by the groove thickness (that allows the closing pins to clip and rest). Indeed, some slicing engine have trouble with lines thinner than the nozzle hole diameter. To counteract that, the thickness of the groove was set to 0.61mm so that every engine would print a (1 line thick) wall for the groove, even if your nozzle is 0.6mm which is fairly common (thanks to CueBall909 for the notice). Besides, the clip by itself needed to be fairly strong hence it's 2mm thick design. Then, the larger the clip's bulge, the firmer the closing. The bulge is actually 0.7mm wide. Finally, there is 0.2mm of space between the cut-out section and the clip so that the clip can bend away.

Figure 6
Pre-tensioned clips

As you can see in Figure 7, the male part of the clip goes further than the female part. It is a pre-tension mechanism that can be used to easily adjust the force required to close the winder. The deviation between the normal position (the purple dashed circle) and the tensioned one (the black circle) is adjustable with the “clip_pre_tension” parameter in fusion360. By default, this parameter is set to 0.15mm.

Figure 7
Changing the force required to close/open the winder

There are two ways that impacts the force that you need to open and close the winder.

  • how much does the clip have to bend:
    • The distance the bulge goes into the wall (on Figure 6, it would be 1.10mm - 0.61mm). The smaller that distance, the firmer the close.
    • Pre-tension the clip using the available parameter
  • How easy it is for the clip to bend:
    • How tall is the clip. The taller the less force required.
    • How thick is the clip. The thicker, the more force required.

/!\ The force required to open / close the winder depends on A LOT of parameters that are not imputable to the model design, such as:

  • number of walls
  • infill density
  • infill pattern
  • material used (PLA, ABS, PETG, etc.)
  • probably many more

Winder design

Its wavy shape allows for minimal cable stress when winded. It features a small chamfer to keep the cable from trying to come out. The two empty spaces can fit two fingers (one in each hole) to wind the cable.

One-side winding

It is possible to only wind one side of the cable. It is actually the raison-d'etre of this design. The open top section of the winder allows one side to stick out from the middle, hence not being winded when the center piece rotates regarding the bottom piece.

Minimum cable stress

The maximum cable bending happens on the winder and the maximal bending radius is approximately half of the internal_diameter parameter.

Winder cable retainer

The chamfer is small, but enough to keep the cable from trying to push the top piece out.

 

Cable length computation

The idea behind the computation is simple: find the cable winder available volume, and divide it by the cable cross-section to find the maximum cable length that fits. However, they were a few caveats with this method.

Volumes

the available cable winder volume is the volume of the whole piece (of radius Rₑ and height h) - the volume of the winder (of radius Rᵢ and height h). We have:

Vᵃᵛᵃᶦˡᵃᵇˡᵉ = π × Rₑ² × h  -  π × Rᵢ² × h = π × h × (Rₑ² - Rᵢ²)

For the cable (of radius Rᶜ and length L), we have:

Vᶜᵃᵇˡᵉ = π × Rᶜ² × L

If we want one to fit in the other, they must be equal, i.e.

Vᶜᵃᵇˡᵉ = Vᵃᵛᵃᶦˡᵃᵇˡᵉ ⇔ Rᶜ² × L = h × (Rₑ² - Rᵢ²)

                       ⇔ L = h × (Rₑ² - Rᵢ²) / Rᶜ²

How it goes in the design process

Unfortunately, fusion360 does not let the designer use the surface area as a variable. Because of that we have no way of precisely knowing the volume that the cable can fit since the inside section is not a square. Despite the exact internal volume possible to compute, the formula would have been wayyyy too big, and it was decided to overshoot the volume by a good margin, in addition to the filling_ratio parameter.

The cable volume problem

However, you may have noticed that the cable cannot occupy the full volume, and they are voids, or gaps, just like interstitial site in crystallography (see what I'm talking about). Hence a factor noted α of 0.70, which roughly accounts for the volume loss in a simple cubic disposition (theoretically, it's 0.75). We have:

L = h × (Rₑ² - Rᵢ²) / Rᶜ² × α

Driving formulas

From the previous formula, we can isolate the height:

h = L × Rᶜ² / (Rₑ² - Rᵢ²) / α

and we can also isolate the external radius:

Rₑ = sqrt(Rᵢ² + (L × Rᶜ²)/(h × α))

We can substitute the radiuses with diameters while keeping the equation true. The formulas are used to drive these two measurements (height and external_diameter) in the model.

 

Versions history

The initial motivation was to design a cable winder that can wind up only one side of the cable, to tidy my desk up. Doing so would have allowed me to have the perfect length between the connection and the (hidden) cable winder, while the rest of the cable goes to where it is due. For instance, my keyboard is hooked up to a hub: the cable winder is 5cm away from the hub, and my keyboard is 50cm away from the cable winder.

Versioncommentsphoto
1.3
  • smooth and robust rotation
  • nice 3-clip closing mechanism
  • cable-entering hole too small and too high causing the cable to push the top part out
  • cable tends to come out of the winder (middle piece)
  • winder too small, can't fit fingers
2.4
  • the cable-entering hole is better at the very bottom
  • The cable can now be tuck in the winder
  • closing clips are too weak
  • cable-entering hole exerts too much stress on the cable
  • need a companion design to do two-side winding
3.2
  • tested a top part that clips on the winder
  • allow the top part to rotate, hence providing two-hand operation with much more torque
  • the cable entering hole is larger and smoother
  • switched to two-side winding as we can still do one-side winding with the top-open winder
  • trying to separate the top part and the bottom one often results in breaking the closing clips
4.3
  • re switched closing clips on the outside surface
  • switched to four clips to keep symmetry with the two cable-entering holes
  • strengthen closing clips
  • loosen the closing force
5.4
  • thickened walls for more robust operation
  • thickened winder walls to have a greater flat surface for better printing process
  • Inset closing mechanism to avoid making the model footprint larger
  • closing clips will now adapt themself if the model is too shallow. It may reduce their strength or flexibility.
6.10

12/01/2024

Huge thanks to @CueBall909 for all the new ideas and the discussions. I'd like to also thanks @LineArcLine for its better modelling approach.

  • MODEL: stack-ability.
  • MODEL: sleeker design with revamped clips with 2 groups of 2 clips.
  • MODEL: cable hole on the bottom and top pieces to ensure that the cable spreads out evenly.
  • MODEL: easier printing thanks to a bigger gap between bottom and center piece on the first layer.
  • MODEL: less play in the rotation by reducing “rotation_gap”.
  • MODEL: improved better cable winding (less likely to be stuck) thanks to chamfered corners.
  • MODELLING: used more revolving sketches to clean up the timeline.
  • MODELLING: added “rotation_gap” model parameter.
  • DOC: up-to-date renders and description.
6.11

21/01/2024

thanks again to @CueBall909 for his discovery on the wall thickness not being printed correctly on some slicing engines.

  • DOC: added “Closing mechanism > Why is the wall so thick?” section
  • DOC: added "Closing mechanism > Changing the force required to close/open the winder" section
  • DOC: added “modelling approach > Different driving modes” section and “Design decisions > Cable length computation > Final formulas”. 
  • MODEL: made the wall thicker
  • MODELLING: made the clips easier to edit
  • MODELLING: made the parametric model more resilient to Fusion360's mess.
No visible changes
6.12

20/04/2024

Thanks to @Frodo_438254 for his help in validating the new design.

  • DOC: added “Design decisions > Closing mechanism > Pre-tensioned clips” section
  • DOC: changed "Closing mechanism > Changing the force required to close/open the winder" section
  • MODEL: stronger close with pre-tensioned clips
  • MODELLING: added a new “clip_pre_tension” parameter.
No visible changes
6.13

05/07/2024

  • MODEL: added a lip in the cable hole reducing its height but largely increasing its strength (specifically when you remove it from the hotbed)
  • DOC: updated renders and pictures
Same as current
6.14

01/12/2024

  • MODELLING: added a new “ridge_height” parameter.
  • MODELLING: made constraints more robust to Fusion360 mess (hopefully).
current

 

 

Tags



Model origin

The author remixed this model.

Differences of the remix compared to the original

Inspired by this model, but redesigned from scratch with a different approach.

License