Hacker News Reader

Comment by cornedor | Hacker News Reader

This has been done for years on HDMI/Cat cables, but instead of on the connector on the cable itself. Why make the connector larger to print very little detail on it, if you have literally a whole meter to write complete sentences.

This is roughly the same solution, but in my opinion more poorly implemented. So please make more USB cables like HDMI or Cat cables, print all the relevant info on the cable.

View on HN

Because then how will you wrap it in pretty textiles?

You jest, but flexibility and endurance is important for consumer cables, and except for LAN parties, Ethernet doesn't get moved much (and is much cheaper to replace).

But what's your solution for braided cables? Because I'll pick braided over "just plastic" any day of the week, and there is no way you're going to cleanly print information on the braid.

I've got many graphic tshirts with text on fabric. I don't see why it's impossible on braided cables.

Even a quick laser etch could be done after the braid. It doesn't need to be super high resolution.

Braiding is not fabric: fabric is a tight-weave, stable sheet, where the fibers are locked in place because it's been loomed specifically for that purpose. That's basically the opposite of what braiding is meant to do: each braid is explicitly meant to move independently, and constantly, so even if you managed to print something on the braining, in a way that looked fine coming right out of the printer, whatever you printed will be unrecognizable after even a few days of coiling and uncoiling the cable, let alone the years of use that apply to USB cables.

I do agree a braid allows more movement and flexibility than fabric. However, I can't imagine the fibers really move that much to the point whatever gets printed will become entirely illegible. It is not like the fibers in the jacket are going to permanently move several millimeters in its normal straight shape.

They don't have to, every fiber just needs to move 1/10th of a millimeter in completely different directions for text to turn into complete nonsense. As for "it's not like"... that's literally why we use braided cables, that's exactly what they do near the connector over time =)

(or any other place that bends frequently, so for cables that get coiled and tossed into a bag and then uncoiled and used a lot, that's basically "the entire cable")

By move I mean permanently in a new position. I agree while it's being flexed the text is going to get distorted, but flexing it back would mostly move those fibers back. If they always kept sliding forward, you'd pull all the fibers out after flexing it a few times. They're mostly going back to where they were when you flex the cable back.

I've written on braided ropes before with markers and they're still very legible despite being used a lot. Make a mark on a shoelace and flex it a bit. Does the line become completely messed up?

I would be happy with either or both.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com