Name: I Tried to Rip Off LTT’s Cable Management
Uploaded: 2026-03-07T21:32:19.000Z
Duration: 19 min 23 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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I don't usually like dressing in branded clothing and I don't understand why I'd pay more for something just because it has someone's logo on it.

For the most part, there are exceptions to this rule.

I will occasionally buy some band merch as a way to more directly support music I enjoy.

And I'll buy things that are functional too.

It's the LTT screwdriver made by the guys at Linus Tech Tips I've been eyeing these off for a little while and finally picked one up a couple of months back.

I'm happy to spend money on tools I use super regularly and a screwdriver is something I use nearly every day.

So the positive reviews and practicality made the high price fairly easy to justify only with free shipping though.

Unfortunately though, 3D printing has spoiled some products for me, like this magnetic cable management system.

When I saw this I loved the idea, but when they were released I couldn't justify the price.

All I could see was something I could just print sold for many, many times the price of making it myself, and

So when I started working on a bit of a behind the scenes project that would require some very particular cable management, I decided spend some of that YouTube money, thank you by the way, on the LTT Magnetic cable management gear and see if I could design something as good or better than theirs using my trusty 3D printers.

So the kit I went for is called the Essential Solution Kit.

In the box you get small, medium and large, what they call cable arches, a bunch of cable tie holders that pair with the included Velcro straps, a power brick mount, extra large and large arches, and

one of the most interesting products in their range, the power bar keys.

Apparently in Canada they call what we call power boards power bars.

I've also heard power strips get thrown around in other parts of the world, so when you hear me say power board, just apply your local name for this.

At first glance it all seems really well made and well thought out and credit where it's due.

And the packaging contained no plastic at all.

I'll go into a bit more detail on some of these later, but

this is not a review or an exhaustive overview of the product.

Before I start ripping off another YouTuber's product like a menace, I thought I'd better use these to help understand what I'll need to replicate and maybe what I might like to improve on a little bit.

So I decided to redo the spaghetti cables that feature under my desk.

The kit comes with metal plates for each component in the system that you can screw into non magnetic surfaces like the underside of a wooden desk.

This lets you use your magnetic arches on non ferrous surfaces.

I use these to add attachment points for the cable arches and the cable tie holders under my desk for easy tweaking of the layout later.

They also offer self adhesive versions of the same plates to save you having to screw them in.

These are an additional couple of dollars each to accompany the plates.

They offer silicone grippers for another couple of extra dollars.

These are supposed to help improve grip on vertical surfaces, prevent scratching, and

stop the magnetic cable management parts from sliding around on a surface.

These seem like a great option to have, but

if you already have to attach something, why not just attach a regular old screw in cable tie anchor this one.

If you're using these on a ferrous surface like perhaps a server cabinet, you have the freedom to put your accessories wherever you'd like.

But if you want to avoid scratching, you'll need to use the silicone grips again, limiting yourself to specific locations, but

that's something we can try and improve on.

Overall, it made managing my cables kind of fun, but

I'm the kind of person that enjoys cable management anyway and I love how easy they will be to reuse.

The power bar holders are particularly cool and they're really strong too across the range.

Actually, the magnets are incredibly strong, which led me down a little bit of a rabbit hole.

Magnetism and the science around it really does feel like magic, and

I'm not really qualified to teach you about it, but

my reading comprehension is pretty solid, so I'll give it a go.

Feel free to let me know what I get wrong in the comments below.

There's all kinds of complicated simulation, math and design work you can do to improve magnet performance, so when I saw these two concentric circles on the bottom of the MCM accessories, I got curious.

Now, you might be familiar with something called a pot magnet.

It's typically a strong neodymium magnet surrounded and backed by a sort of steel hat.

What that steel does is redirect the magnetic flux.

Instead of letting the magnetic fields spread out in all directions, it focuses it where the designer wants it, almost kind of like a lens.

In other words, it reduces wasted magnetic energy and pushes more of it toward the surface.

When I saw photos of the LTT cable management stuff, I assumed that's what was going on here.

But when I tore one apart, what I found was actually kind of the opposite.

Instead of a magnet surrounded by a steel cup or hat, these are a ring magnet with a steel slug in the center.

And interestingly, it seems to function in a very similar way.

That steel insert appears to help shape and concentrate the magnetic field in the direction they're looking for toward the mounting surface.

Now, I don't know exactly why they went this route.

My guess would be ease of assembly and cost.

A ring magnet with a press fit steel insert is probably simpler and much cheaper than a pot magnet with those machined steel cups.

But even with a really basic and not very scientific test, just pulling the magnet off of my pliers here, I can clearly feel the difference in strength with and without the steel slug installed.

There's obviously been real thought put into how to maximize the power of these little magnets.

And considering the cost of high quality, high strength neodymium magnets, that's not exactly surprising.

For my versions, I wouldn't have an easy way to make these steel slugs and replicate the entire design, nor the knowledge to optimize it.

But you can buy pre assembled pot magnets pretty easily.

The first thing I wanted to replicate was the cable arches, which seemed to be the core of the product range.

They also seemed a pretty simple starting point.

Obviously, my key constraint was that it should function just like the original magnetic cable management product.

But I had some additional constraints I needed to work with.

My design had to be easy to print, so anyone could print this at home with readily available materials and on a basic printer.

And it had to be compatible with off the shelf magnets in readily available sizes.

They print upside down and you just install a pot magnet with a countersunk hole in the bottom with a small screw to hold it in place.

The key difference between my cable arches and the LTT ones, aside from aesthetics, is these magnet covers.

The magnet covers are printed in a flexible material like TPU and and just stretch and clip over the magnets to provide a bit of extra grip and to prevent scratching.

If you're not worried about scratching the surface or about your cable arch sliding off the surface, you can just use a little accent ring instead.

The model is 100% parametric, as are all the designs in this video, which means all the geometry is defined mathematically by just a handful of variables.

What this means for you is that you can download the model, open it in Fusion360 and and change the magnet size, width and height, and

the rest of the model will automatically adjust to suit.

You can also change the size of the cable openings and Velcro strap width to adapt it to your specific use case.

Now, flexible filaments can be a little bit tricky to print, but

thanks to today's sponsor, Prusa Research, it's easier than ever.

One of my favorite things about Prusa printers is the fact that Prusa continually improves on their designs and often provides everything you need to upgrade your printer to the latest spec as new iterations are released.

Alongside the Core One L, they released the updated Core One plus that adds a lot of those quality of life features from their new printer to the core one.

And they released a kit to take your core one to plus spec for less than 20 bucks.

You could even print the parts yourself and have your printer build your upgrade kit for itself for free.

One of the best new additions in the plus spec is the updated filament sensor, which makes it way easier to use flexible filaments in your Core one.

Because flexible filaments are flexible, it's difficult to push them through the filament feed tube and past the filament sensors.

Prusa recognized this shortcoming in the Core One and designed a new version of the sensor that includes a switch to make it easier to get the filament through the tube and to the print head.

So with this upgrade installed on my printer, loading and printing TPU for the magnet covers was dead simple.

This kind of thing is what makes Prusa unique among a sea of printer manufacturers these days.

Not only are they iterating on their designs to sell you new and improved printers, but

they're also making sure your old Prusa isn't left behind behind every time a new feature is released.