PSU Cable Sleeving, Is it worth doing yourself?

[Xrqute]

Hi guys,

Quite sometime ago I bought some bitfenix cable extensions and tbh wasnt happy with them. Its lead to the space behind my motherboard tray being absolutely crammed full of excess cables, and quite frankly I don't like that lol.

Since then I haven't been able to decide between sleeving my PSU cables myself or buying a Sleeved corsair kit to match up to my AX860.

To buy a Corsair kit I'm looking at approx $160 Aus by time I get the 24pin as well as postage.

my question is to those that have sleeved their own cables before, Roughly how long does it take to do a full set of cables? And what quantities of sleeving, heat shrink etc would I require? So that way I can price it up and work out if it is worth my time to do.

and also do you guys think its worth doing now that you have the gift of hindsight?

Cheers,
Xr.

 

[NeverBackDown]

You could always try lacing your current cables? It would help the organization part of things? Looks cool too.
Link to thread here

 

[Xrqute]

You could always try lacing your current cables? It would help the organization part of things? Looks cool too.
Link to thread here

yea its something to consider.... i just hate extensions.

Apparently not many if any have done their own sleeving :-(

 

[Wraith]

I have sleeved my fan cables but not my extensions they came already done in white, but I will say lacing is the future and must be done. :lol:

 

[MadMarc]

Hi guys,

Quite sometime ago I bought some bitfenix cable extensions and tbh wasnt happy with them. Its lead to the space behind my motherboard tray being absolutely crammed full of excess cables, and quite frankly I don't like that lol.

Since then I haven't been able to decide between sleeving my PSU cables myself or buying a Sleeved corsair kit to match up to my AX860.

To buy a Corsair kit I'm looking at approx $160 Aus by time I get the 24pin as well as postage.

my question is to those that have sleeved their own cables before, Roughly how long does it take to do a full set of cables? And what quantities of sleeving, heat shrink etc would I require? So that way I can price it up and work out if it is worth my time to do.

and also do you guys think its worth doing now that you have the gift of hindsight?

Cheers,
Xr.

I've sleeved my my PSU cables a while ago (you can check out the result here: http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=56879&page=4) and I'd do it again.
I'm not sure how long it took because you have to take your time and stop every now and then before you get frustrated (which is likely to happen a few times ;-) ) however for a 24pin, 8pin, 2-4 6+2pins and sata/molex cables, I'd say about 8-10 hours. Of course this depends on your PSU and how complicated the cables were made in the factory.

The amout of sleeving you need is pretty straight forward to figure out, just measure the length and multiply it with the number of wires and adding about 0.5 inch per wire to allow for errors.
Also buy about 5 feet more that that if you cut a piece too short or something else happens.

Heatshrink is not needed at the connectors, but if you like the look of it and want a bit of extra strength get about 10-15mm per wire and end plus again some extra.
If you want to do it "heatshinkless" you'll still need some (1-2 feet) in case some wires split into two or the other way round. With sata power cables you need heatshrink as well.

If you consider your time, the material and tools you have to get I don't think it's worth it from a purely objective point of view, however once you're done and you see the result, you'll appreciate it that you've done it yourself.

 

[Xrqute]

Well i ended up going for a look online and found http://www.corsair.com/en-au/professional-series-gold-ax1200-individually-sleeved-modular-cables-blue for $25 which is a fricken bargin. So i snapped them up quick smart. Apparently the are incompatible.....I'll see about that. And well if they incompatible I'm going to do some surgery an Xfer the sleeved cables to the compatible plugs of the stock cables from my AX860! Way to save a shit load on good quality sleeved cables

I have sleeved my fan cables but not my extensions they came already done in white, but I will say lacing is the future and must be done. :lol:

yea I'll end up lacing these just because it takes the look from professional to a whole new level of crispness lol.

Edit-

Just got a reply on my ticket to Corsair.



I'm an electrician I've learnt how to choose correct cables for application. last time i checked all Psu's had a 12V, 5V and 3v rails..... that hasn't changed. And cable selection is mainly based around the current draw and this guy mean to till me an 860 Platinum supply has the potential to draw more then a 1200 Gold. yea don't think so buddy. i'd like to see him try to explain why cable extensions are universal haha. It's actually annoying that he didn't take 5 min to look into it for me and that he just gave me a default response. might have to swap some plugs around but that's ok since i got the cable set for $25 instead of paying $120+.

 

[JR23]

The 24-pin cable is massively different from the AX1200 to the AX860 to beyond the point of a simple modification or block change however that cable is available separately. I couldn't tell you about the rest of the cables as i've not looked at the AX1200 set very closely however from experience I know one does not simply buy an AX kit for an AX Platinum, the AX760/860 Platinums are unique. All of the other cables are standard issue Type 3 Gen 2's AFAIK.

JR

 

[Xrqute]

The 24-pin cable is massively different from the AX1200 to the AX860 to beyond the point of a simple modification or block change however that cable is available separately. I couldn't tell you about the rest of the cables as i've not looked at the AX1200 set very closely however from experience I know one does not simply buy an AX kit for an AX Platinum, the AX760/860 Platinums are unique. All of the other cables are standard issue Type 3 Gen 2's AFAIK.

JR

I bought a separate AX 24pin as I thought that maybe the case. But surely the rest would conform to a standard. But if not that sucks especially if I can't modify them to suit.

Even so $25 in my mind was worth the gamble.

 

[JR23]

I assume you mean an AX860 Platinum 24-pin an 'AX' as in from the old 750/850/1200 Gold series is really different. Yeah I think the rest of them should work, i've been trying to find the old Corsair compatibility chart but it appears to have disappeared.

 

[Xrqute]

I assume you mean an AX860 Platinum 24-pin an 'AX' as in from the old 750/850/1200 Gold series is really different. Yeah I think the rest of them should work, i've been trying to find the old Corsair compatibility chart but it appears to have disappeared.

Yea the Gen 2.

http://www.corsair.com/en-au/individually-sleeved-ax-860-760-atx-24pin-generation-2-blue

I'll be sitting down and comparing each cable to the stock equivalent just to be sure. I'm not going to rush and plug it all in just to find that something is actually different.

With stuff like this there really should be some sort of global standard they follow like ISO etc I wonder if ATX falls under a particular standard. I'm actually going to look up the ATX standards and see if it mentions anything about PSU cableing.

Edit-
Found it. Just had a quick look. Should be quite informative.

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=mCnYU8mbO9SdugSOi4KoBQ&url=http://www.formfactors.org/developer%255Cspecs%255Catx2_2.PDF&cd=3&ved=0CCUQFjAC&usg=AFQjCNEVMjV8jDiALx1jSPM5GRlqOLRNaw&sig2=ShTZJEbz7XAc1-Dnw3-5Lg

Edit 2-

The info regarding the design of PSU's was actually here.

http://www.formfactors.org/devlist.asp?FFID=-1&CatID=2

It has a standard for the load side which I expected would be there. But I think modular gear came into existence after this standard was written so no supply side spec's are mentioned. Not even a note saying you can configure as you please.