Tidy your cables

Thomas Koflach shows you how to create a smart and simple cable junction to keep your cables and water-cooling tubing tidy.

The inside of your PC will often resemble a bird's nest if you don't take care to route your cables properly. A little planning will ensure that your cables are hidden away, but you can also flaunt your cables rather than hiding them. You need only look at mods such as Orac3 and Ice Cube to see that cables can be very attractive.

This guide shows you how to make an attractive cabling system by constructing a simple but good-looking piece of acrylic casing, through which you can then route your cables, and even water-cooling tubes if you choose.

We'll show you how to attach attractive multiway connectors to Molex plugs, and even use a stereo jack plug to supply power to a fan, which you can then route neatly through your new casing. You could also attach other cables to multiway connectors, and thread your cables through tubing for a unique finish.

What you need:

• Drill    

• Heat gun     

• Heatshrink

• Soldering iron and solder

• 3mm acrylic in any colour (available from www.plasticonline.co.uk)

• 16mm flat wood drill bit and standard 8mm wood drill bit

• Multiway connectors (www.maplin.co.uk, codes: FK25C & FM53H)

• 3.5mm stereo jack plug (www.maplin.co.uk, code: FJ99H)

• 3.5mm stereo jack socket (www.ebay.co.uk)

Optional:

• Single nozzle panel-mount (www.koolance.com, code: NZL-V10BXG-P)

• Cable sleeving (www.specialtech.co.uk, code: FK3800)

• 8/6mm tubing (www.aqua-pcs.co.uk)