Friday 4 July 2008

Reduce some workbench zip tie clutter with a Viewtainer

This is a kewl little storage device addition to our workbench setup:

Viewtainer holding 4" zip ties

I happened to stumble onto this product in one of our local hardware stores. The sizes they had were more oriented towards nails and small nuts and bolts.

So, a quick search turned up the product manufacturer's Web site: Viewtainer.com.

We purchased enough Viewtainers via their Web site to cover each workbench station and our technician's tech cases for 4" and 6" zip ties. A few extra small ones were put in use as common chassis screw carriers.

On top of the Viewtainers we find a closed slit that opens when one squeezes that end. They make zip tie access quick and easy without the subsequent mess. The Viewtainers have eliminated virtually all zip tie and chassis screw spills and work bench messes during system builds, system rebuilds, and system maintenance.

We have a company policy that on all of the systems that pass by our workbench, we make sure that all cables are appropriately zip tied to eliminate clutter within the chassis and improve air flow. Over time, with enough systems passing over the workbench at peak busy times, prior to having the Viewtainers, things could get quite messy. These little gems have helped to make cleanup in between jobs that much easier for our technicians.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

1 comment:

stryqx said...

Aaargh!

Cable ties - I hate them with a passion. I know they're cheap, but it's an absolute pain whenever you want to add a device. It's also a shocker when you see a certified cabler pinch Cat5/5e cables with these things...

I much prefer cable wraps or chassis-mounted cable clips. One of the first things I do with my own PCs is remove all the cable ties and add either Velcro cable wraps or cable clips.