Cable Management Trays

thingiverse

# Cable Management 3D printable cable management trays. They are designed to hang off the back of your desk (in my case, a fairly standard piece of Ikea furniture) and support not just cables, but small pieces of electrical equipment - small computers, routers, power bricks, that sort of thing. More design details over on [my website](https://snowgoons.ro/posts/2020-09-05-zen-and-the-art-of-cable-management/). ## What's in the box There are three components included. I've included sliced gcodes as well as my own project files from Cura, but you will want to start with the STL files and slice them for your own 3D Printer. The three files (in the ```bodies``` directory) you care about are: | File | Description | | ----------- | ----------- | | cable-tray.stl | The 'heavy' cable tray, designed for a pair to be able to safely support a 2018 Mac Mini as well as associated cables. | | light-cable-tray.stl | A lighter-weight cable tray, smaller and intended to support just cables or small electrical devices. The sizing permits a pair to support a TP-Link 8-port switch. | | grubscrew.stl | If you are hanging lightweight components or indeed just cables, you'll want the tray to grip the desk (for heavier items, it's designed for gravity to do the job.) These grubscrews screw into a corresponding hold in the trays to clamp the desk from below. | ### Using the heavy tray to support a computer THe heavier cable tray in ```cable-tray.stl``` is designed to support my Mac Mini, or any similarly sized computer. The design is based on an intended load of around 7.5 Newtons each, so two of them should be able to support a weight of around 1.7kg. Static load simulation in ```studies/Intended Maximum Load.html``` shows the level of deflection expected under this load, with generic Plastic as the simulation material. Simulating a 3D Printed part is obviously inexact, but when printed with a *50% infill density*, the deflection seen in practice matches that predicted by the simulation (see simulation image). Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on your printer settings and material - so, printer beware, but it works well for me!