Cable storage? Any good tips?

M

matthewd5

Veteran
has anyone come up with a clever way to keep their xlr cables from turning into a rats nest when they transport them?

i've never seen any bag meant for cables and now i've got like 10 cables that are 20 feet or so and now i just added a 25ft breakaway cable to go from the 442 to the camera and a 50 ft duplex cable to goto the boom operator.

i'd like to find a good way to protect my investment in all these cables, especially the two recent additions as they are psc's and are like $200 each and not something i could replace without having to wait a day or two for a new one to come fedex.

matthew
 
I have a couple of red canvas bags I keep mine in. I bought a boatload of velcro cable ties, and just keep each one coiled separately. I've never had any problem.

Hopefully you already know how to coil cables "over/under". I'm not sure I could explain that one with out showing it.

Phil
 
thats pretty much what i'm doing now, the velcro ties that wrap around the cable and stay attached.

i picked up two very cool round caribiners at a trade show i went to with my wife and they are super handy as you can clip a lot of cables to them because of the circular shape vs. the traditional.

one is red and one is blue so red is for incoming signal and blue is for outgoing cables.

i've been trying hard to color code everything. the boom mic i always use blue and for lav's i use yellow and i used to use red for the two cables going to the camera but now i have the breakaway cable.

i'm definitely going to get some of that yellow tape that filmtools.com has, it has sticks on the edges but not sticky where the cables go underneath so its supposed to help keep the cables clean and try to keep idiots from standing on them all day.

matthew
 
Matthew,

I wouldn't worry about keeping your cables clean, or keeping idiots from standing on them. Regardless of how you mark them, tape them, etc. people will still stand on them and they will still get dirty.

Besides, with most productions you won't have the opportunity to keep them taped down. You're going to need to be able to move them on a moments notice. Like when they change the camera angle slightly and all of the sudden your mic cable is right in the middle of the shot.

Don't get me wrong. Still get a roll or two of gaffers tape to tape down the cable where it crosses pedestrian paths. But just a little bit of tape to keep people from tripping.

As far as cleaning goes, a damp paper towel run the length of the cable does the trick for me. (Except for the time I did a shoot at a herring processing plant...that damned fish smell never did come out of the cable...I finally pitched it. Tape would not have saved it either.)

Phil
 
its not so much the xlr cables i worry about, its the $200 duplex cable or the breakaway 10 pin hirose cable from the mixer to the camera.

ll beane is having a sale and i got a nice canvas bag with a zipper to keep the cables in.

put it on our ll beane credit card and got free monogramming "XLR Cables"

matthew
 
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