How to tidy / coil? up raspberry pi PSU cable properly?

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Pic explains it all.

I purchased that under desk cable management thing, and was wondering if it’s ok to wrap up the cords as in the picture?

There is plenty of air flow, pi cables never get even warm. I’ve read so much about “extension” cords, and I don’t have an extension cord plugged in, and the actual power board is connected to the wall untangled (not coiled up).

Thx :+1:

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Hi Robert
There is only a relatively small current flowing here and it is DC at this point anyway so coil away.

I don’t know what you have read or where you read it. There is nothing much wrong with extension cords providing:
The extension cord is in good condition and the connections at the end are secure.
The actual cable and connections are rated for the expected current.
All safety precautions are met especially regarding water. Operate via an extension plugged in to a RCD safety trip device:
DO NOT coil the cable. If on a cable reel extend fully to use. This is AC and a coiled up cable is an inductor. If using heavy current with the cable coiled it will get very hot. Even to the point of melting the insulation.
These precautions are fairly easy to implement.
Cheers Bob

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Thank you! I thought I was within safe voltages and operating limits, but wanted to make sure.

Rob to Bob over and out
:grin:

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A coiled-up mains extension cable gets hot because it can’t dissipate the heat generated by the current flowing against the resistance of the conductors. It doesn’t matter whether it’s AC or DC. It isn’t to do with inductance.

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Thx. I should have elaborated on my “extension cord” comment.

When doing a search for “is it safe to wrap/coil/tidy a power supply cord” all I got was results with sites warning about coiling up extension cords, and/or high voltage power cables exceeding 240volts, (which I was not doing, nor actually asking duckduck or google for this answer).

I assumed I’d be ok with 2x pi’s consuming no more than 5w each, and the other thicker black cables are for 2 switches, both which are coiled up looser than the pi’s, but thought I’d ask here to be sure.

Anyway I appreciate the extra info, electrical engineering was something I wanted to study,…

:+1:Rob