I'm probably moving back into the big scratchboarded SR-8100 soon. As much as I like the looks of the little tower, I hate how cramped it is.

I figured I'd do it really right and cut a bunch of holes in the mobo tray to allow cable management.

Now the problem is how to finish the holes so they don't gradually shred cables.

I thought about filing them a bit, which will probably do some good, but I also recall my old Skyhawk MSR4620 came with a rough edge capped with this soft plastic stuff. It was maybe 3mm wide, and had one side with pairs of "pins" that held onto the metal.

With that, I could safely trim the edges and not run much risk of missing spots or making sharp edges worse with a file.

What's it called, how much is it, and can it be obtained at a typical Ace/Home Depot?

You need some that is usually called a grommet strip. Some thing like Pegasus - Small Grommet Strip (.010 to .036 )

It's a flexible plastic strip you can stick into all kinds of weird places. A little superglue or epoxy will hold it in place. I have always gotten mine mail order from work. I'm not sure who would have it at a local store.

Make your cuts, file them smooth, then drop in some U-channel molding or something of the sort. Bill Owen carries it pretty affordably, and it works well for smoothing out the appearance (as well as the functionality) of any fan holes. I used UC on the motherboard routing hole of my last project case...

Quote: Originally Posted by GrandpaNoob72 Make your cuts, file them smooth, then drop in some U-channel molding or something of the sort. Bill Owen carries it pretty affordably, and it works well for smoothing out the appearance (as well as the functionality) of any fan holes. I used UC on the motherboard routing hole of my last project case...

Ya, what he said ^. I forgot to look at Bill's site. He has basically the same stuff I linked to but in black instead of the white. Check it out.

UChannel