Side table & cable management

[Mrs Pingu]

The time has come,' the Walrus said,. To talk of many things:
Specifically this growing rats nest on my living room carpet.
2023-07-22_07-47-02 by The Pingus, on Flickr

So enough is enough, I'm thinking of buying a side table, perhaps something like this sort of thing
https://www.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/furniture/romsey-natural-solid-oak-side-table/1007150.html

But then I'm thinking to hide the socket strip on the back, maybe drill a hole thru the back of the drawer and then you still need to have some cable routed to the top.
I'm pretty sure some of you clever people have come up with some great solutions, care to share?

[ScumOfTheRoad]

I have a double deck metal side table which houses wireless router, hubs for Philips Hue lights and Hive thermostats. Plus landline telephone.
If you search for router wall cabinets there are neat cabinets which go on the wall. I am seriously thinking of one.

We also have a plastic box from Robery Dyas which is something like a big shoebox. You put the mains extenion block in there and leads pop out of cutouts. There are ventilation holes.

https://www.robertdyas.co.uk/d-line-cable-tidy-unit-large-white

https://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Line-Extension-Electrical-Management-Electrically-Safe/dp/B0076XNIA

One of these would be perfect for you. Watch the length though - they are in differing sizes.

[fruitcake]

Organising the wall warts: one of the challenges of our age! For non-portable appliances, I like to have power strip wall mounted and the cables coiled and cable-tied to make them the right length. Wall mount makes it easy to pull the plug when necessary. Your table mounted power strip would look neater as the strip would be out of sight.

The equivalent challenge for portable devices is organising the chargers and their wires. There it's charging stations for the win. 

[Mrs Pingu]

Think this table might work better all round, no need for drilling. A shelf to put a cable mgmt box and holes in the front and back of the drawer. Also a fraction of the price.
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/nordkisa-bedside-table-bamboo-60447677/

[Paul H]

Secondhand?  Round here there's a glut of quality office furniture being sold off due to the increase in people WFH. I bought a cabinet last year, £50 for something that had cost £360 two years previously.  The same office were trying to get rid of pedestal draws, originally asking £20 each and no one wanted them, I bought two for a tenner! 

[Kim]

The only solution I've found to rat-nesting wall warts is to eliminate as many of them as possible.  Which is reasonably practical for things that can be Powered Over Ethernet, or stuff that lives in a rack where you can install a single unified power supply dispensing the requisite amounts of DC voles.  I have a strong preference for computer equipment (network switches and the like) with integral power supplies and kettle lead inlets, on general neatness grounds.  (The thing about a kettle lead being that it's easy to make one of a custom length.)

What it doesn't help with are the myriad chargers you need for charging random portable stuff (especially those with sill plugs and voltages) which is what appears to be the main issue here.

Whatever you do will succumb to cable management entropy in due course, so I'd go for the sort of solutions that involve convenient shelves, tactical blu-tac and velcro straps, rather than anything too involved.  That said, I'm not beyond drilling holes^[1] in shelves to ease the passing of cables between levels.



_{[1] Something like a 22mm forstner bit is your friend here.  Neat holes that are just big enough for a booted RJ45 or an inline female USB-A.}

[robgul]

I'd start with a plan sketched out on paper to see exactly what you are trying to cope with (and what you might need) - with focus on where the devices that are fed from the wire-nest are located.   Our incoming technology seems to grow like topsy with BB router, digital phone router, BB back-up to cellular gadget, Hive hub and more - all needing power.

. . . and a trawl of charity shops/Gumtree/FB Marketplace and perhaps s/h furniture shops would probably find something to suit?

[Jurek]

I have a shelf under my desk, about 6 inches off the floor which serves as a footrest and somewhere for my software CDs (remember those?) to live.


Below the shelf, is cableage hell:

Out of sight is out of mind.

[lissotriton]

Ikea used to have a side table with a Qi wireless charger built in. Seems like a neat idea, if you have devices that support it. Not sure if its still available.

[Mrs Pingu]

I've ordered the IKEA Nordiska I linked to above and a shorter socket strip which will hopefully fit in the drawer. If so I won't need a separate cable manglement box.
It might require plugging the new strip into the end of the existing one (due to distance from the wall socket) which I daresay is verboten but we will see.
In the words of Kirsty Wark, more on that story later.

[Pickled Onion]

I've ordered the IKEA Nordiska I linked to above and a shorter socket strip which will hopefully fit in the drawer. If so I won't need a separate cable manglement box.
It might require plugging the new strip into the end of the existing one (due to distance from the wall socket) which I daresay is verboten but we will see.
In the words of Kirsty Wark, more on that story later.

I don't see why not. Unless the first one is a dodgy 5A one and/or you're expecting to plug in a kettle, a hair dryer and a washing machine all at the same time, I don't see a problem.

[Kim]

I don't see why not. Unless the first one is a dodgy 5A one and/or you're expecting to plug in a kettle, a hair dryer and a washing machine all at the same time, I don't see a problem.

The danger of daisy chaining power strips is one of those things that BRITONS^[1] have a sort of genetic memory of, based on a combination of legitimate concerns from the pre-BS1363 era and advice to FOREINS - chiefly but not exclusively leftpondians - with their inferior anbaric practices.

Assuming that they're correctly fused and un-damaged, the only real risk of daisy-chaining comes from the sort of adaptors that hang from the socket, which are likely to be overwhelmed by gravity and develop intermittent contact in a SCART connector style.  Related is the risk of voltage drop or exporting an earth a long way from where it's supposed to be with multple extension leads, but that's the sort of thing that you worry about when running a cable out the window to charge a car or power the village fete tea urn, not connecting a couple of power strips so you have enough sockets under your desk.


_{[1] Including fire-fighting types, who consider electricity to be the work of the devil and only really understand hoses.}

[Mrs Pingu]

 

[Diver300]

I don't see why not. Unless the first one is a dodgy 5A one and/or you're expecting to plug in a kettle, a hair dryer and a washing machine all at the same time, I don't see a problem.

The danger of daisy chaining power strips is one of those things that BRITONS^[1] have a sort of genetic memory of, based on a combination of legitimate concerns from the pre-BS1363 era and advice to FOREINS - chiefly but not exclusively leftpondians - with their inferior anbaric practices.

Assuming that they're correctly fused and un-damaged, the only real risk of daisy-chaining comes from the sort of adaptors that hang from the socket, which are likely to be overwhelmed by gravity and develop intermittent contact in a SCART connector style.  Related is the risk of voltage drop or exporting an earth a long way from where it's supposed to be with multple extension leads, but that's the sort of thing that you worry about when running a cable out the window to charge a car or power the village fete tea urn, not connecting a couple of power strips so you have enough sockets under your desk.


_{[1] Including fire-fighting types, who consider electricity to be the work of the devil and only really understand hoses.}

That reminds me of the leftpondian example that is offered as being an immediate fire risk, because there are multiple adaptors daisy-chained, and maybe 50 phone chargers in total plugged in. The reality is that 50 phone chargers comes to about as much power as one gaming computer or the world's most feeble hair dryer, and there is no risk of overloading anything. The Americans are getting scared because someone once in the 1960s plugged in several heaters into one socket.

[Kim]

I must confess I saw National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation at a formative age.  The overloaded socket trope seemed to be a staple of 80s comedy.

(click to show/hide)

That video's fully xkcd://202-compliant with one comment from someone surprised the socket didn't catch fire, and another (who's presumably about 12) wondering if they're LEDs...

[Moleman76]

If you're putting the power strip into a drawer, recall Pythagoras and a²+b²=c² and maybe putting it on a diagonal will let you fit in a longer strip.

Over here in Leftpondia, the Doug Mockett company - www.mockett.com - makes just about every size and shape and surface trim for wire grommets and other clever furniture-related hole covers.  Likely you have similar available to trim things out, provide orderly passage for cords, etc.

[Mrs Pingu]

Here's my Nordiska, all tidy.
2023-07-27_06-34-15 by The Pingus, on Flickr

Not sure if it will stay exactly like that. Socket strip is in the drawer, which is ok except for the fact the device cables are all different lengths (Fitbit cable is stupidly short) so if I were to open the drawer at the front it would fall off the back. So drawer for the strip only really. Also if I open the drawer from the rear the cables all escape out of the little finger hole at the back and I have to be very careful not to inadvertently jam them in the drawer when I close it again. Guess I shouldn't need to do that too often though.

[Mrs Pingu]

The neat freak in me needs to cable tie that remote charger cable to the leg to hide it too. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

(click to show/hide)

That video's fully xkcd://202-compliant with one comment from someone surprised the socket didn't catch fire, and another (who's presumably about 12) wondering if they're LEDs...

Just as an aside to an aside, that xkcd is obviously fake itself. I mean, moon landing conspiracy without mentioning the Clangers?!!!1!

[Pingu]

I'm worried about what's in that notebook 

[MattH]

Here's my Nordiska Nerdiska, all tidy.

FTFY

[Mrs Pingu]

[Mrs Pingu]

I'm worried about what's in that notebook 

My nefarious schemes, as you well know!