You only have one bin of cables?
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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Long ago I sorted my bin into two bins - obsolete and not obsolete. Now it’s been so long some of the not obsolete box is becoming obsolete.
Sounds like you need a third bin.
Never give up the dream.
NOW I do....
I recently lost a micro USB cable and I am having the damnedest time finding another one from any physical stores. Everything is USBC now. Hoard all the things.
Why do you need to get it from a brick and mortar?
Monoprice! It's the only answer
I have, uh, nine. That are sorted. Probably others elsewhere.
Audio, video, USB, AC power cables, wall warts, internal data cables, non-USB data cables, game console specific cables, and adapters/dongles/splitters. (That's not getting into the game controllers and accessories, expansion cards, drives, box o' fans, and ye gods forbid, the milk crates full of consoles. And the one full of plug'n'play TV games.)
Whatever it is you need, I got it.
Your categories have me concerned for your efficiency. So many things can fit in multiple categories. Is HDMI audio, video, or non-usb data? How about Component A/V? Are usb-a to micro cables considered USB, or adapters? Or USB to coaxial/concentric barrel (since you don't have a separate DC power bin)? Do you wrap the DC bricks with their AC cords and bundle them into AC?
Currently annoyed with my 5 boxes of cables and considering a repack.
HDMI goes in video. Sure, HDMI "can" carry audio. Nobody thinks of it as an audio cable. Component cables rarely carry audio. They go in video cables as well, regardless of whether or not they've got the extra two RCA's glommed on.
USB-A to Micro B go in the USB cable box. The adapters box doesn't have any cables in it, it's all gender benders and pin converters and so forth.
The box of wall warts is in fact labeled "DC Power" but these days is realistically just mostly full of wall warts. Vanishingly few devices use a DC power cable that is independent of a brick or wall wart but is also not USB of some description. If a brick has an associated AC cable it gets placed in a baggie (almost everything I have is bagged to prevent tangles and aid sorting/labeling), especially since there are so many damn variants of them. Are you going to try to use it without its cable? Of course not.
Do yours however you want. My system, such as it is, started as one box of cables and got progressively speciated as I accumulated too many cables to fit in one box anymore, and thus one category had to be split out.
The next split will probably be separating USB cables that contain a Type C plug on them from ones that don't, as the lingering threat of being buried under an avalanche of A-to-Mini-B cables is ever present.
I need an Analog Austrian Telephone Connector (TST) to RJ11 ;) Let me know what you want for it!
My wife complains that I have "so many cables", every now and then I need one though.
You never know when you'll need that micro USB cable for a bike light or a VGA cable.
This exactly. One day you will need to convert DVI to an obscure format with a DIN Connector.... I'll be the hero of that day.
I just had the opposite happen.
I needed to get an analog audio signal out from an old PS3, but it has an odd proprietary connector.
How a converter cable for that ended in my cable bin Ill never know, but the purpose of the bin has been vindicated for at least a decade.