HexKeep
Storage System
Anyone who is remotely tech savvy probably has an abundance of cables. Most likely, these are all swimming together in a drawer or two, possibly with some hint of structure and order, but at the end of the day when you need a cable you're going to have to dig for it.
I was no exception - my cable drawer was an absolute monstrosity. Something had to be done! I saw a short craft video instructing how to create a makeshift cable storage rack by gluing old toilet paper rolls together, and this got me thinking of better solutions.
I wanted something more robust, more professional looking, and with slightly more space in it for my longer cables. You can see my initial thought process for this in the video below, but I eventually settled on a hexagonal grid, with each 3D printed "cell" featuring a slot mechanism on each side, making the whole thing completely modular.
This worked remarkably well after a few iterations! The next thing I designed was a series of "endcaps", to cover up the slot mechanism on the outermost edges and give finished assemblies a smooth, polished look. I also made a version of the endcaps which I modified with screw holes, to fit additional attachments.
At this point, I was satisfied with my system, but still lacked a solution for larger items such as laptop chargers, wall-warts, and even some of my longest cables which wouldn't fit in the regular cells when rolled up. So, I made a copy of the design and simply doubled the side length, effectively quadrupling the volume. With the pattern being hexagonal, this resulted in some irregularities in the assembly, but nothing that wouldn't be corrected by the following cells. This also meant designing special endcaps not only for the big cells, but to interpolate between the space where a regular cell connects to a big cell. Lots of math was involved in all of this, but the end result was absolutely perfect.
I now had a system for most items, and a solution for larger items, but if I wanted to store lots of smaller items such as adapters, accessories, or miniature cables, they had a high risk of getting shoved to the back or being hard to find. To solve this, I designed a drawer to be inserted into any cell for both the big and regular versions. I used this for my smaller items, and it worked an absolute treat! After a few iterations the fit was flawless, it was easy to use, and it served its purpose incredibly well.
I'm floored with how well this turned out, and I'm even working on making a small business selling these on this website soon! I've officially named the project "HexKeep", and will update in the future once the shop is up and running.