Nice Deal on Round ATA66/100 Cables

[ChrisIsBored]

Willith don't use an exacto-knife or anything sharp.. the key is to grab something like a butterknife... slice down to the point where you don't cut it the first time, you're just seperating it a bit.. then cut through...

I have this cheap pocket knife i bought for $1.99 and it works perfect for this. Haven't cut through to even one bare wire!

I bet the trash on e@ay would pay for some home made cables.. and i have so many i could make a lil profit if i had the patience to sit my ass there for hours slicing cables

 

[mralex]

Hey guys,

Can someone tell me what else do these cable provide besides the neatness? Do they perform better the ordinary flat ones?

Thanks.

 

[ChrisIsBored]

neatness is all you will get... they're regular cables just cut to be streamlined for better airflow.

 

[Wingznut]

mralex, check out the pics of my pc that I posted above. And yeah, only neatness and better airflow is all you'll get.

And for those saying to just make your own... Check out my pics. I challenge you to make some that look just as nice and are just as flexible. I've made rounded cables before, and they always end up looking like crap.

If I'm not mistaken, I'm certain that these cables aren't ribbon cables that have been modified. They look as though they were built with this in mind, from the start. It doesn't appear that the wires were ever joined.

 

[Gorham]

Plycon has rounded separated floppy cables for the person looking for them.

They also sell fully separated rounded ATA cables. I ordered some last week before they ran out. Site says they're expecting a new shipment in soon- might have even said tomorrow, but i'm not sure. Shipping is a bit steep if you're only ordering one cable, but if you're ordering multiple items it's a pretty good deal.

 

[Fritzo]

No, you can pick up an ATA-33 cable for $1. ATA-66 and especially 100 cables can run up to $40! They have 80 wires in them as opposed to 40. This is actually a pretty good deal.

- Don't critisize things you don't know about.

 

[Hulk]

Those round Plycon cables look like garden hose!
Is that just a weird picture? Are those things flexible enough to work with?

 

[Diesel Dan]

For those questioning the importance of the appearance of these cables on the inside of your case, I would suggest a trip here, among other places, for a decent example.

There's a whole culture of folks who like to modify their cases, both for improved airflow and appearance.

Some of the modifications are pretty damn cool, and are functional as well as attractive.

Some examples of what can be done:
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4

For some, the appearance of the inside is just as important as the appearance of the outside, so don't criticize others for having some imagination and creativity.

 

[Gorham]

Some of the plycon cables are "fully separated" I just got mine today. The fully separated ones have the ribbon aspect completely stripped away and are about as flexible as you're goign to get. You can actually see each of the individual 80 wires at the end of the cable just before they attach to the connector. They are also very small. I also picked up one of the twisted plycon cables (I needed a 24 inch cable too). These are quite flexible, but not as flexible (but a lot better than using the standard ribbon) as the separated cables. They are also a bit more bulky. On the upside it only cost 9.99 as opposed to the 15.99 for the separated cable.

By the way, this was the first time I ordered from plycon and I was very pleased. Everything came as advertised packed well and arrived when they said it would.

 

[Willith]

Hey chrisisbored,

I tried your idea with the butter knife, but it still got into the wires. It mst take a lot of practice. Since I have this one cable ruined, I might as well practice on it. Anyone else have a "easy" way to seperate the ATA 100 (80 wire) cables? Thanks for the help and I'll keep trying to get it right, I have 24" to play with.

 

[Yknot]

Dynamix3D: "The cables at plycon.com are the same as the ones from pccables.com". Functionally they may be identical, but they are not vending the same product. Eg: PCcables' have a shroud where the wires fan out from the cable to the headers -- it doesn't attach to the header (which would be a defect), but it covers most of the wiring that's exposed in the Plycon model. Can't identify any purpose to this but aesthetics.

Plycon offers both fully slit cables and ones where the slits are about every 10th wire. The latter are stiffer, they write, and philosophically they seem wrongheaded but they may work well: pressing together wires running parallel increases cross-talk -- it's what PC-66 cabling was redesigned to reduce, using intervening ground-wires to attenuate cross-talk, right?

PCcables only carries the fully-split ones, which have great flexibility (I have two). Ideally, I suspect these wires would be woven to minimize cross-talk, but... not likely to be done here! (I vaguely recall old internal cables [SCSI?] which were woven!)

Neither PCcables nor Plycon shows images of ATA-66 wiring as I view their images. 'Didn't take note when I installed my PCc* ones: hope they've the extra grounding (shielding) wires that characterize ATA-66!

Someone once posted that the PCc* cables have twisted pairs: I'm uncertain what would accomplish as the second wires are presumably just ground wires, not a differential circuit. I didn't check on this twist when I installed mine.