Aren’t they just going to fight over which slightly different technique is best? I think you might end up worse off when they’re all going at once.
I use over-under, personally. But I once figured out that you can achieve the same effect without the reversed coils. You end up with small amounts of torsion in each coil, but it isn’t additive. Overall, though, it’s more annoying than over-under.
Topologist? Nah, big mistake. Who knows what kind of non-Euclidian contortion they’d come up with.
The worst thing about working with volunteers is poor cable management. I end up recoiling about four or five cables every friday night during band season.
I use the quarter-turn method for loose cables and the figure-8 for vacuum cleaner cables and hoses.
The ideal mix for maximum competitive cable-coiling energy is one A/V tech, one rock climber, one sailor, and one topologist.
He left out at least one construction worker.
How are you counting the turns? Take a ribbon and wrap it once around your hand— that one turn makes a full twist you have to undo.
In one hand, hold the roll. In the other hand, you measure out loops of ribbon. Keep your thumb always on the top of the ribbon, without letting it rotate under, and keep your hand in the same orientation. As you bring the loop around so your other hand can grab it, you’ll naturally get the right amount of twist.
I just tried it with a power cable that has a flat cross-section, and remembered why I don’t like the technique: the roll naturally tries to form into a figure-8. With over-under, there is no twist to it at all.
What is over-under? Perhaps I use a different name?
Nope - never used that method. How well does it release?
Very well. You can generally throw the whole roll across a flat surface and expect it to pay out without tangles. At least assuming you don’t accidentally get one of the ends tucked through the loop. Then it’s a disaster.
Hmm. I shall have to practice it.
At the top of this page is another simple technique that is not a coil at all but rather a sinnet; not always appropriate but occasionally quite useful.
Of course, the best technique also depends on the length and weight of the cable, and how it’ll be deployed. For a short, lightweight cable like most USB cords, I find that it works just fine to literally roll it up, rotating the coil in my hand as I’m adding more cable to it. When you get to the last circumference, you start twisting the free end around it, to hold everything in place.
EDIT: @DPRK, what you’re calling a “sinnet” is apparently another name for crochet.
You can, but you can also easily achieve an over-under roll by rotating the cable in your fingers one way or another as you make loops. The torsion encourages the loop to flop on one side or the other. Not a big deal if the cable is 3’, but it’s handy to develop the muscle memory for those occasional 12’ cables.
Why bother? It’s a Law of Nature that all cables spontaneously unroll and tangle when they are put into a drawer. Just like Christmas lights.
All of my cables are neatly held together with velcro cable ties, like these:
That’s exactly why you bother. That doesn’t happen when you use a good technique to stow it. No, really, it doesn’t.
Yes in that case, but that is just one type of sinnet, a particular chain sinnet. There are also other types like plat sinnets and solid sinnets which are braids and not useful for stowing ropes and cables (they are for combining multiple thin strands into a thick rope). At least this is the terminology I picked up from reading Ashley’s Book of Knots, which has an entire section on coils but the big difference is that traditional fiber rope is supposed to be twisted, usually to the right.
I used to do this on my 100’ drop cords for yard work. It’s quite useful, as it’s compact, but will automatically unfurl as you get further away with your weed whacker. Unfortunately, this is a no-go for long term storage, as the cable tends to get bent and unruly after being stowed for a couple of months.