Spiral-shaped vertical cable conduit

January 21, 2009 1:32 PM

Help me find this spirally alternative to jiffy poles for office wiring.

I'm about to have a new office wired for network, voice and power, and some of the clusters of desks are islands, not near a wall. Usually you'd run cables to those using jiffy poles, those hollow poles that go up to the ceiling and have power and network jacks at the bottom.

But a while ago, on some design blog, I saw photos of an office that had some sort of plastic coil to run the cabling through. It looked like a spiral hose or like the tubing they use at quick oil change places, and for all I know it might have been exactly that.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I'd like to investigate that for the new office. Does anyone know of something like this, or know where I might have seen it?

posted by mendel to technology (14 comments total)

Not sure if it's the same thing, but it might just be a cable wrap.
posted by rhizome at 1:47 PM on January 21

No, this was bigger and more springlike, like a spiral hose which went floor to ceiling without stretching (so the gaps were equally-sized). The cable went down the centre of the spiral, not inside the hose.
posted by mendel at 1:50 PM on January 21

Do you mean the cable tamer, or was the thing itself spirally like these glowy things? Actually I think you mean this but I can't find it elsewhere. I think it was on BoingBoing last January.
posted by jessamyn at 1:58 PM on January 21

Perhaps you mean Carlon ENT.

There are several types of wire conduit that are flexible and would work for you. You should go to a Lowes or Home Depot - or, better yet, an electrical supply shop - and ask to see flexible conduit.
posted by Flood at 2:00 PM on January 21

This.
posted by jessamyn at 2:02 PM on January 21

I totally mean this, yes!

And putting that image into Tineye got me to the BoingBoing post in question.

(Which is a dead end, alas, but I'm further ahead from where I started. Anyone seen those elsewhere?)
posted by mendel at 2:03 PM on January 21

If you go to the Flickr photo they indicate exactly which Birkenstock store they saw this in. Maybe a little too much hoofin' for you, but an interesting quest.
posted by jessamyn at 2:10 PM on January 21

Anyone seen those elsewhere?

Yep!
posted by rhizome at 2:19 PM on January 21

I can't tell, but I don't think it's an actual air hose, because it seems to be a lot more gravity-resistant: it looks like

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / /

(but top-to-bottom), instead of

/ / / / / / / / / ///////

Anyhow, this is probably enough to throw at our cabling guys. The more I think about it the more I don't think I could run power and ethernet down one of these anyhow.
posted by mendel at 2:35 PM on January 21

Yeah, I see what you mean and it's hard to tell from the photo whether that's happening in the store or not. Since it's a Birkenstock retail, they could certainly have the budget to build a jig and fill the hose with glue or something else that would solidify the shape.
posted by rhizome at 2:40 PM on January 21

There's no way it could avoid begin coiled tighter at the bottom unless it was completely rigid which I doubt is the case. And yeah, it may not meet building code for non-low-voltage wiring, i.e. power.
posted by GuyZero at 2:42 PM on January 21

You could use something called wire loom, which has a similar effect (although it does not look so cool). Ikea sells this version in shorter sections (about 5m long). I use multiple sections to route cables around a large workstation - not so colorful, but it might work for you? It can be tied to table legs and other fixtures to stabilize it.
posted by Susurration at 2:54 PM on January 21

The more I think about it the more I don't think I could run power and ethernet down one of these anyhow.

I must admit that when I first saw this photo I assumed that the coil was the power cable, with the Cat5 inside it. Googling turned up this (I'm sure there are others). Assuming that all cables are properly shielded, wouldn't this overcome any building code issues?
posted by Tawita at 3:21 PM on January 21

I found a couple places that sell coiled power cords and electrical cable. Lots of cool stuff for industrial (and other) use.

http://www.philatron.com/

http://www.cablescience.com/
"Specialists in Coiled Cords, Custom Cable, and Retractable Cable!"
posted by orme at 4:12 AM on January 22