not a bad idea if you’ve got to route multiple types of wire to the shelf, AV/ethernet/usb/rs232/coax … common stuff for an AV setup.

Velcro ties are a must. This sort of cable management I have little time for *except* when the wife gets involved and tells me I can’t keep my gadgets and other junk plugged in because it makes the place *untidy*.

I bought a load of Velcro ties from Amazon a while back I’ve used them for loads of things. They are little more friendly than cable ties.

Wow…how boring am I :P

But I feel bad now – kudos for making it yourself and all, but is it a hack to just copy a commercial design and make it in your garage?

bear in mind i didnt RTFA, but it seems to me, in such a situation where the shelf is moved in and out fairly regularly, such as in a computer desk (6-20 times a day for example), the wires would weaken and break at that center joint fairly quickly under the stress of use. assuming one uses their computer 6 days a week, gets up from it on average 12 times throughout the day for whatever reason, we’ve just bent and unbent that bundle of wires almost 600 times in a month. keeping with the trend, it’s almost 7k times a year. stranded copper cable is some fairly durable stuff but it cant take that sort of abuse. i’m sure it’d be fine for things normaly left alone but it isnt going to manage my keyboard/mouse/random USB crap/etc ratsnest i currently deal with.

tl;dr not for use in nuclear facility

When I had everything rack mounted and I wanted it pull-out able I used spiro-band in conjunction with wire ties.

Wire ties were used only for strain relief.
Large loops in spiro-band kept it all neat and didn’t force all the bending stress on a few points while keeping it changeable if need be.

I dont think its a good idea for CNC, they have those chain like flexible conduit which bend the wire over its length rather than over and over in the same place.

This does indeed seem like something I have seen many times in server rooms. It’s good to see that it can be implemented quickly and inexpensively in the home.

I agree with other posters that bending wires like this may turn into a problem over time. I would try to make it so that the joints bend as little as possible, perhaps giving them a wider radius turn at the joint or adding more segments to reduce the distance moved on each push/pull cycle.

i was thinking about building something that serves this same purpose, but my design was a little more complex, and much gentler on the wires. think “retractable _whatever_ cable” like you can get at dollar tree even. just scaled up to at least a 5 inch radius. spring loaded, retractable, under-the-desk-mounted cable holder. but it was just for 1 usb extension cable. How those things work is:
the cable is bent like an S or Z depending on which way it retracts, and the rest is up to the spring-loading mechanism. or whatever you want to call it. basically a coil/spiral of flat metal that tightens up when you pull the cable out, and pulls the cable in when it releases that tension.
im not great at putting this sort of thing into words but i could draw you a nice .bmp to explain it. maybe a pull-start mechanism would be more familiar, since retractable cables probably became ‘legacy devices’ with the introduction of the whole bluetooth and WiFi thing.

Rack mount servers have this for Years.. what is the big new???

the comments above about wire durability are important.
a slight mod, IMO, would be to loop the wire once or twice at the bend points. in clamshell cellphones, you will find at least 3 loops in the cable, at the hinge, going to the screen.

thanks have a nice day

cablox can be very useful as well