(Long) Cable storage

This might be obvious to some of you, but it's only just occurred to me, so I thought I'd share for those of you who've been suffering along with me.

I have various boxes that I use to store cables in. Often they're coaxial cables of various types, or audio cables and maybe they're power cables or the like. They tend to be inflexible.

Putting cables into boxes is a sure way to get them tangled with each other, so it makes sense to roll the cables up.

In order to stop the cables becoming unrolled (and tangled) in the box I've used all sorts of things such as tying knots in the cables themselves, using various types of tape and sometimes I've used twist-ties or even cable ties. Each of these methods has problems: knots come undone, tape deteriorates and becomes a sticky mess, twist ties risk damaging the cable and cable ties are one-use.

I now use the same sort of cable tidy that I'd use to bind a bunch of cables together and run them in a neat and tidy way at the back of my desk or TV unit. My two favourites are the spiral wrap and the velcro tie. Cut a few short lengths of these, roll your cable into a convenient circumference and secure it with two or three of the spiral wrap or velcro tape. They both work well with a minimum of stress to the cable itself, they're clean and easy to remove and they're re-usable.

I don't know why I haven't thought of this before.