Cat 5 cable reel for WPS and Firetek users

[meckman]

What did you do in pyro today? I made a cable reel for my cat 5 cables I use on my WPS firing system. I’ve always dreaded the day after a shoot winding up 12 - 50 ft cables. Seems to take forever. I figured with a reel I could easily wind them up in the field and not have to worry about putting the whole system in wheel barrow to deal with the next morning. Every reel that I looked at wants you to leave the wire on the reel until the next time you use it. I wanted something that I could pop a side/top off and take the cable off. So I saw a video on Youtube on how to make a cable reel from a bucket and I shrunk it down a bit to make it work for my application. Turned out really well.

Also made a couple roman candle racks today. Well rebuilt one, and then made another one from scratch. Here is the rebuilt one. Used some 3/4” schedule 40 I had left over from an electrical project I had a couple weekends ago to use as candle holders. Looks and functions a lot better than the zip ties I used last year.

 

[meckman]

I made an update today. I added some aluminum bar stock and then I drilled and tapped the center of it so that I can add a drill chuck adapter. This way I can reel up the cat5 cables at the speed of a drill.

 

[Torch]

Impressive bucket build. I like the idea function of it, but seems like a bit of hassle (feeding it through the bucket, velcoring the cable down, putting the doughnut on, winding it up manually or adding the drill, then dissembling it all, removing the cable, and then starting the process over again for the next cable and doing it again.

Additionally, I try to use the "over under" approach for most my cords and cables and pretty satisfied with it. It works with the UTP cables and works great with the softer DMX cables. I use it on my extension cords and garden hoses, too.

 

[meckman]

The problem that we have is since it takes so long to reel up 12 cables we usually just take everything and dump it into a wheel barrel and deal with it the next morning. Well by doing that we have a huge rats nest of wires to untangle. It takes anywhere from 30-45 mins to untangle and wind up all the cables. My idea is that we can avoid the rats nest and reel up these wires in the field since I figure I can wind up each wire in less than 30 secs. So in theory I should be able to reel up the 12 - 50ft cables in approximately 6 mins rather than the 30-45 mins.

Keep in mind in the video I was handicapped by only being able to use one hand since I was recording with my phone in the other hand. So by being able to use both hands and a drill it will go a lot faster. I actually hooked up the drill yesterday and it’s stupid fast. I’m going to have to only use it about 1/4 to 1/2 throttle because full throttle is way too fast.