Why?

I needed a way to sort my approximately 1 trillion USB cables and I wanted to have a look at the connectors when selecting one.

The design is intended to be easily extendable. Print as little or as many of the pieces as you like. If you are fancy you can do a start and end piece, or just do multiple middle pieces. They clip together as seen on the images in somewhat tight friction fits.

Cable compatibility

I designed the slots/fingers for USB cables, but they should hold most household cables. The slots are 5mm wide and have 22mm long fingers. For me this comfortably holds up to three cables per slot.

Shelf compatibilty

There are models for 10mm, 15mm and 20mm shelves. If your shelves are thinner or you don't like the friction fit and the holders feel like falling of: Go ahead and print the “adjustable” middle pieces that have a worm screw type adjuster on the bottom. The screw is an ISO trapezodial M8x1.5 thread, and should easily be printable. I added a few lengths of printable screws to the models. Mix as you need. 

Printing

I printed the parts in PETG, since it has a nice “spring” to it to clamp to the shelf I had. It will probably work in most filament types.

The puzzle piece connectors are designed to be in multiples of .2 mm layers, to fit that layer height well. I'd suggest .2mm layers for the main bodies.

The printing orientation is as shown in the slicer screenshot. Support is required to hold up the fingers in the front. I used automatic tree supports. Sometimes the automatic supports want to hold up the bridge inside the puzzle piece connector on the bottom. Since these are with very tight tolerances for a strong friction fit, I'd advice against supports there.

Updates

2024-11-24

Offset the surfaces in screw STLs to allow for better fit when printed.