The Wires

August 27, 2010 9:35 AM

What can I do, aside from the obvious, with fifteen gray, six-foot PC power cables?

There's a box of extra ones downstairs that are free for the taking. There's gotta be something cool I can do with them other than power fifteen PCs. Hive mind?

posted by valkyryn to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

You could braid and loop them into some kind of uber-nerdy art to hang on the wall.
posted by vytae at 9:45 AM on August 27, 2010

What vytae said. I was thinking you could make one heck of a Flying Spaghetti Monster with those!
posted by sister nunchaku of love and mercy at 9:49 AM on August 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

You might not have enough to weave into a hammock, but you could probably do a smaller sling chair.

Or hold a Speed cabling competition.

Or make A dress

Also, if you might find that a tub full of soapy warm water is a good idea before working with the cables too much. Unless you like random sticky bits of filth all over everything.
posted by fontophilic at 10:00 AM on August 27, 2010

Best answer: Make a real life electric jellyfish!
posted by niles at 10:54 AM on August 27, 2010

Response by poster: Awesome, niles! I think what I'm going to try to do is make a sort of lamp out of it, with a LED or something going on each cable and the whole mess going to a cheap-ish power strip.

Now, does anyone know of any cheap plug-in LEDs?
posted by valkyryn at 11:05 AM on August 27, 2010

Well, LEDs need DC, and what'll be coming out of your wall is AC. Most LED lighting set ups (Like this ikea one) run back to a DC converter box.

It can be done, if your soldering skills are up to the task. I don't think there are any commercially produced products that would allow you to plug it into a 3-pronged wall socket.
posted by fontophilic at 9:01 AM on August 28, 2010