Underware 2.0 – Open Source Infinite Cable Management | Hacker News Reader

Underware 2.0 – Open Source Infinite Cable Management

makerworld.com

223 pointsreimertz67 comments

I haven't played with the 2.0 stuff, but I do have the original Underware on the underside of my desk.

I don't like the core concept of routing cables through what is essentially 3d printed trunking. It's a ton of printing, and a ton of faff to install. Instead I use their cable hooks at various points along a cable run. Much quicker and easier to manage after the fact.

This is probably the most useful underware thing I've printed thus far, for securely holding various PSU bricks: https://www.printables.com/model/1119354-double-clip-cable-t...

I've used the one-point connector for power supplies and a few of them on my docking station, and it's been really secure, but thanks for pointing out that one, I'll print a couple of them to have on hand.

I wonder if you could use the lattice work and do cable lacing on it instead.

If I can give one piece of advice on cable management it's this:

Get a "Cable Management Box", actually get several.

Everywhere you have a power strip you should have one of these. It helps contain the mess of cords, hides it away, and prevents them from being dust/spider/hair traps you don't want to touch. Shove the extra cable inside the box so you don't have a extra wires laying about. You will absolutely love not seeing a rats nest of cables, even if it's just behind/under something.

I won't link to any product because they are all the same. It's just a plastic box with 2 holes/slots on the sides and a lid. It's stupid-simple but it's worth every penny. If the box is visible I guess you could spring for the more expensive ones but I usually get a 2-3 pack for $20-30. I don't think I've ever bought the same brand twice since are all the same and I just pick the cheapest that fit my needs (size).

Search for "Cable Management Box" and you'll find it.

You'll probably also be interesting in "6-Inch Power Extension Cable", they are great for wall warts. You can plug multiple of these into a power strip and then hang the large heads off to the side (instead of blocking multiple ports). And all of that stays tucked away in your cable management box.

That’s funny. I’ve made several <5m I call them ‘unstension’ cords and jokingly say “look, this extension lead is so short, when you plug it in the cord actually gets shorter”.

Dead appliances have their cords cut off and chucked in a box, when I need a few inches more length I put a female plug on the other end. Either that or I open the device and put a longer cord on it, but that’s extra effort.

Will probably play around with this, looks slick.

For folks looking for some other options I bought this cheap server raceway: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00008VFAP. Super nice to run the cables into the slots and then let the mess be inside there. I screwed one part into the desk and the cover I cut into 4 pieces so I can remove only one piece if I need to move cords around or whatever.

3d printed a few pieces for power supplies and a power strip but for the most part all cables go to the raceway. I had something similar to this original "underware" at some point but it was a pain in the ass whenever I changed cables/etc. So many extra holes in the bottom of my desk now

This project seems to be building on top of Multiboard [0], which is a lattice that is used as a base to mount all those runners and equipment holders on.

So the idea is that you put a lattice up with "a few" screws and then you can change everything else underneath without having to screw around any further.

[0]: https://www.multiboard.io/

I haven’t played with UW yet, but my understanding was that other platforms can work well with it, including openCore, which I’m very excited about.

Do you have a link to openCore? There's a rather unfortunate name collision with a Hackintosh bootloader that's preventing me from finding any info on it no matter which search engine I use.

Correct, it is based on multiboard.

Which has a completely untenable license. I was interested in these cable holders, but I can’t reasonably print anything that would require me to agree to the multiboard license.

+1 on this. Works wonders, costs nothing.

As often happens in 3D printing, where the term often seems more like a marketing term than something informative, this is not open source by commonly accepted definitions. (The title here inappropriately says 'open source', as the page title does not.)

These models themselves are CC-BY-NC-SA, which is not open source because of the non-commercial restriction. Non-commercial is also vague, and my understanding is that with 3D printing some people using the license have even argued that NC prevents users from ordering prints from a print service rather than printing on their own printer, or prevents someone from being reimbursed for filament costs.

To make matters worse, however, these rely on Multiboard for mounting, which is decidedly not open source. Multiboard uses its own, long, proprietary license [1]. Amongst other things, it appears:

- you cannot print it for anything other than your own personal use (no printing for others, even for free), and agree to never give or even loan any printed items to anyone; you even agree that you won't 'encourage' third-parties to give physical prints to anyone else,

- you cannot publish modified versions unless they are "substantial", and you agree to license any of your modifications to them (their 'non-binding summary' says that license doesn't include selling them, but the binding license itself definitely seems to include it),

- you agree that you won't 'do anything at all contrary to the interests of' the company,

- the company can at any time, for any reason, terminate your (or everyone's) ability to make modified designs, and can also terminate your license entirely for any breach of the license (which, remember, would include doing anything at all contrary to their interests). It's not entirely clear what that termination would mean for physical prints: at best, it would make it impossible for you to expand a system you already have, though I would not be surprised if the company tried to claim it would prohibit you from using the items you've already printed.

[1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C0-Iyxydqk_d2I3o_5ualJ9Y...

> The title here inappropriately says 'open source', as the page title does not.

The page itself, however, does incorrectly describe Underware as "open-source":

> Open-source design - The whole solution is open-source, so feel free to extend and come up with your own brilliant solutions.

It doesn't address the CC-BY-NC-SA issue, but I suspect most of it could be used by substituting t-slot for the multiboard.

The title of the page is Underpants 2.0, but the renderings are nothing like what the title promises.

I guess there is some automatic translation going on. I've said it a thousand times but I can say it again:

There are very few universal truths in life but here's one: Do not use uncalled for automatic translations. Ever. Certainly no type of translation without prooreading.

It is deeply disrespectful of your users. Should they want to read the page in another language than it was published in, there is a perfectly functional button in their web browser.

Your users get by on the rest of the web, and they can surely manage your page. Unless they have to hunt for the existence of your home cooked "language" setting, which may or may not even exist, without which they have to guess which words translate to underpants. It may be fun the first time, but believe me, it gets boring quickly. Any web shop that presents me with a butchered version of my locale gets closed immediately without giving it any further attention.

Are we looking at the same page? 'Underware', the name of the product, seems like a simple pun: it's hardware that goes under your desk (or wherever else) to simplify cable management. The descriptions are perfectly clear, if a bit heavy on the marketing-speak.

Of course we aren't. That's the whole problem. We have different locales. That results in a header somewhere with the languages I understand in order of fluency (which includes English, mind you), as per the specification. And the author of that web page decided to turn on an automatic translation tool to present its output instead of the original web page.

That tool is particularly bad as it somehow decides that underware is similar enough to underwear that it should map the word to the word for underpants in my language. The rest of the page is a little better, but not by much. But the problem here isn't the quality of tool itself which results in particularly amusing choice of words but by the use of the tool itself.

Don't do that. If the end user wants to read your page in a different language, they are perfectly capable of clicking that button in their web browser and deal with the outcome themselves.

Just don't. I will not hunt down the language selection button on your badly translated web site and I will not change my web browser settings for your site alone. I will simply choose not to visit your web site, and I suspect many others will do the same.

Ah, I see what you mean now. I've seen plenty of websites with very dubious English that I suspect were machine-translated, but websites trying to do their own realtime translation is something I haven't seen. Or maybe it's just something I haven't noticed.

(I wonder why people would even do that, since as you say, all the modern web browsers have built-in support for a translation button.)

even reddit does it now. i have to stumble over words in ny native language that don't make sense together to realize I have to disable the translation that I didn't ask for to make sense of what was written

I also see it translated into my local language, and indeed the title was localized into the equivalent of underpants. Maybe OP was retranslating it back to English?

Strange enough, the description has a hint about the translation, and I even can turn it off to get the English original, but this is not working on the Headline or the website itself.

If I open the page, I see "Sous-vêtements 2.0", the translation for underwear in French. Sadly, this does not look like 3d printable lingerie.

Somebody is trying to be more inclusive (because what else would any attempt at translating content be?). It's okay to have an opinion about, well, anything, but, what I think is "deeply disrespectful" is completely ignoring good intentions and pretending to be able to speak for a group of people in an overly forceful and authoritative manner.

> Somebody is trying to be more inclusive

Not likely. No one ever felt included by an automatic translation. It is impersonal and clearly comes off as such.

Stastical translation tools are tremendous and helps me regularly to understand the gist of texts in other languages, but I understand that it is at best an approximation and I am prepared that the details may be somewhat off.

Being presented a butchered text where key words must be guessed what they were translated from is deeply disrespectful of other language speakers, yes. It really is. Why else serve them a second-rate quality web page? A translation can only make the text worse. It can not make the text better. This time it was only a question of underpants but sometimes the result can include literal insults.

> because what else would an attempt at translating content be?

Misguided?

I'm trying to be kind and helpful here: Please stop this. It is not helpful, and every popular web browser already offers a drop down menu bar button with a translation tool that is not only potentially better but also under user control. There is no upside to this user hostile design and the downside is that it is confusing and potentially derogatory.

If you watch Hands on Katie on youtube (Katie created original underwire) it will all make sense.

The title is Underware, not Underpants. Katie is Welsh, so I don’t see why there would be any automatic translations. I also fail to see how any of this might be disrespectful to their users. Care to elaborate?

This was almost certainly done by Makeworld, not Katie, which makes the top comment even more pointless and needlessly vitriolic. Katie might read these comments, but Makerworld's UI people are not likely to take orders from an irate Hackernews user's screed.

Vitriolic is completely uncalled for. I have no idea who Katie is. I guess I could find out by translating the text back to English again?

Somebody linked a page which is more or less broken for people with other locales, and the nice thing is to give them a heads up just how bad the situation is. They likely don't even know since they do it nonchalantly without checking the results.

If I could get just one more web developer to stop installing automatic translation plugins it will all be worth it.

Hands on Kate, has an actual real sense of humour, so you know, I strongly suspect its Kate's deliberate choice.

I was greeted with a surprising "Underwear 2.0" (sic) in french, so not only it's translated against my will (my computer is configured in english) but it's badly translated

This is probably over-engineered, even for people who can juggle their kubernetes inventory in their head.

For things like the bottom of my desk, I use a cable stapler to attach gear ties. You can easily add or remove a cable without tools.

I know, gear ties are kind of expensive. You can get cheap plant wire+foam thingies if you want.

Zip-ties are good for permanent or needs-to-be-secure situations, but I rarely guess right on "permanent". Then I need to dig out a cable nipper and another properly sized zip tie to make changes.

I had some zip-tied cables under my standing desk, giving me 2 cables I had to deal with when changing height: ethernet and power. Then I had everything else under the desk (power strip, various power bricks and my docking station, cable runs from one side to the other). It was ok, but not great.

I switched to Underware last year, I didn't do any channels, just hangers and plates I could stick to my power strips and bricks and dock. It's really secure, really easy to adjust, and I've been very happy with it.

I also put it on the side of my bedside table, where I have a power strip, and 2 USB power supplies, and I really like it. Especially like that I can clip one off and travel with it, before I had the 3M command strips velcro, but it kept falling off.

I also printed out the multigrid and some holders for my lawn watering tools. I have a post that I mount my hose reels to, front and back, and I put multigrid on it. Then I made some holders that my "quick connect" hose connectors slot into, so I can just dock them there.

Holy smokes that's a tough to view site for mobile folks.

It ain't much better for us desktop folks.

This as of a good opportunity to ask as any: If I happen to sit on 100s of different cables from the last two decades, that I all want to keep yet they aren't actively in use, what are some good way of storing those?

I initially just hanged them off pegs, but eventually the variations became so many I had to figure something else out. At the moment, they're just separated into boxes by what domain (more or less) they belong to, but surely there has to be a better way? I want them accessible but not in the way.

Toilet paper cardboard tubes. You'll eventually collect enough, and you can roll the cables into a flat loop, with the two ends on the same side (helps with sorting by connectors), then surround them with the cardboard tube. Store them vertically in a drawer or a box (so you see only the connectors).

Hmm, sounds doable and useful, I'll give that a try. Many thanks!

Throw them all out other than the 10 or 20 that are still technologically relevant (USB-C, HDMI, etc.). Next time you need one, buy one for $5 on eBay. You get all your storage space and time you’re going to spend on this back and all it costs is a few bucks to buy the one cable out of all of them that you’ll ever really use again.

> Throw them all out other than the 10 or 20 that are still technologically relevant (USB-C, HDMI, etc.). Next time you need one, buy one for $5 on eBay.

Yeah no, horrible solution TBH. They don't take a lot of space and I don't really want to get rid of stuff I know I'll eventually need, even if only once per year.

I sort them into shoe boxes, that sit on shelves.

Interesting looking project and I’ll probably try printing it out and experimenting with it, but as an aside

Why is the maker and her site so porny but not porn? I thought I had clicked the wrong Instagram link and had ended up on an Only Fans model with all the downblouse shots, but it’s never mentioned or sold, just talks about the project.

For what it's worth, I had the same reaction as you. The still image of the YouTube video prominently features a woman standing, arms spread, with her nipples clearly visible because she's not wearing a bra under her shirt.

Other comments here shed some light on this.

Apparently the original creator was aiming to create a system that managed the wires under her desk, and named it underwire. An underwire is a part of some bras, which is how they got to the suggestive branding.

It looks like this is version 2.0 of the project / a fork of the project so they changed the name slightly to underware, as in 'hardware under your desk, to manage wires'

So it's a bit off for me (use sex to sell beer; tell me I'm smart to sell nerd stuff) but at least it makes sense now.

Hope that helps!

If you think that a woman has to meet a modesty standard that you decided on in order to participate in "nerd stuff", then you are the one with the problem.

> Why is the maker and her site so porny but not porn?

Sex sells.

The logo is a breast with nipple.

I guess I’m surprised at how quaint the commercialization is then.

The website has pictures of a woman wearing perfectly normal woman clothes that many women wear every day, doing things that many women do every day.

If that is giving you porn vibes, then that's a you problem.

You’re getting downvoted but I’m similarly put off by the gratuitous downblouse and upskirt shots (at least in the first underware video [0] which is itself referred to from the linked video).

I was more put off by how long the video is and how little the actual underware system is on display. It seems more like a branding exercise for the person in the video. Contrast that to the tirst gridfinity video [1] which yea also has terrible puns and wordplay, but which spends way more time showing off the project.

[0] https://youtu.be/0TT96b98YZY

I wouldn’t even say put off. I’d say more that I’d been trained by the last couple of years of the general internet that if signs like that exist there’s an upcoming affiliate link or link page you ignore.

Almost pleasantly surprised that it was legitimately background to the concept and not yet another monetization strategy

Same I thought it was some type of NFSW content so did not bother to play the video.

I've been looking for something like this for quite some time so really happy to see an open-sourced solution with a lot of happy users.

Will report back how the 3D-printing goes.

My IKEA desk has this net under it, it’s so simple and just works. No tedious mucking about with screws or cable guides.

https://file.app.ikea.cn/cn/en/images/products/bekant-desk-s...

Oooo nice, gridfinity but for cables

Holy cow, that guy is intense! Also: cool stuff! I know what I have my neighbor print for me.

Pretty dope concept. I bought a standing desk last year and use the adhesive strips that came with it but some of them have lost their stickiness.

I wonder how many people here on HN will get outraged about nipples.

I've been looking for a reason to buy a 3d printer and I think I've finally found it!

Anyone care to recommend some suitable (and beginner friendly) printers?

The Bambu Labs A1 series as others have mentioned is ridiculously good, from all the reporting I've seen. I ended up getting the P1S with the multi-filament printing on sale on Father's Day and I've used the heck out of it. It replaced an older Ender 3 Pro that I loved, but was always having to mess around with. I don't know the hours, but it's been printing the vast majority of the time since I got it, last Father's Day, and it's been super reliable.

This weekend I designed and printed out a routing template for routing out door hinges onto door jambs. I had bought a tool for doing it on doors then realized it wouldn't help me on the other side.

If you want something that ‘just works’, it’s hard to go past the entry level options from Bambu Lab despite their march towards Cloud and ecosystem lock in. If that kind of thing bothers you, the new Creality ‘Hi’ series is probably where I’d start if I was starting today. For other useful things to print, check out Gridfinity as well!

Bambu Lab. Not open source friendly but they're the first company whose printers more or less Just Work.

I walked into my company hardware labs at the right time and was gifted a bambu labs a1 mini with 350 printing hours on it. I've since added another 300 hours over the last month and a half. It's a fantastic machine, and only costs $200-$240 (MSRP is 240 but I've seen it as low as 200 new).

Stick to some matte pla to begin with and with the a1/a1 mini it's as close as you can get to plug and play.

Also check out grifinity if this project appeals to you.

Thirding on Bambu lab although they are supposed to be announcing their newest model any day now. You may want to wait a few weeks to see if you could pick up someone’s p1p or p1s for cheap if they are upgrading

https://lian-li.com/product/dk07/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v2PfSuDJAE&t=282s

My next desk, I've been done with wires.

Hmmmmmm....Some interesting camera shots in the video

Can I buy pieces somewhere without buying a printer?

Perhaps you are not familiar with it but you can literally order just about any part in any material online.

Several business that used to print PCB's also do 3d printing at very competitive rates.

I won't advertise names but it's easily found online. You simple upload a stl file, select a material and that's kind of it.

Some other comments have mentioned that the CC-BY-NC-SA license on this (and similar projects) makes using such services legally questionable, since that technically counts as the sort of "commercial use" the license prohibits.

This also means that the "Open Source" in the title is incorrect.

Check your local library or makerspace. Our local libraries will let you send a file to them and they will 3d print it and charge you the cost of the materials.

There was a software company named Underware in the DOS Days that made a great editor. They were bought by Borland and then it disappeared.

I do not want to deal with a Captcha so I do not know what the article is about. But the 2 posts here seems to be happy.

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