Multi-Use Bendy Phone Charging Cable

I came up with the idea a while ago, I'm sure that I'm not the first to think of something like this, but I haven't seen anything like it on instructables, so I thought I'd post it here. Anyway, I wanted to make it as premium and awesome as possible, and what better way than to encase it in paracord?

I was inspired by Spaceman Spiff's "Paracord charging cable" and decided to make a cable similar to his, because: 1) It makes it look awesome, 2) It makes it feel awesome, 3) It can be any color you like, and 4) It encases all of the ugly wires of this project perfectly. So I went for it!

I was also inspired by a project that I can't find, but it put wire in paracord and used it for some pretty cool things, I'm not sure what happened to it, but it was a great instructable and I believe that it won a prize in a past paracord contest. In turn that instructable inspired my own "Paracord phone stand" which was one of the leading factors in the idea to come up with this.

Lastly, I was inspired by the "twig" which I origionally saw on kickstarter a while back and thought, "what a brilliant idea," I then also saw it on sugru.com and decided that I needed my own, so I made one, which you can find here. It is a brilliant project and super useful, but, what if you prefer a longer cable?

Anyway, I decided to put together a bunch of projects and remix them all into this super awesome phone cable thingy. So let's get to making it!

You aren't going to need too much for this project.

I had all of the things on hand and so it was completely free for me to make. But if you had to buy all of the materials (not including tools) you could easily do this for under $10, and even that's an overshot.

Anyway, here's a list of materials you'll need:

• Wire: This is to create the bendiness in the cable, I used 14 gauge insulated wire, and it also shouldn't be a bunch of strands, it should be a solid core wire. I would also recommend that you use an insulated wire, because it will reduce the chances of shorting
• A charging cable: You need a charging cable that will fit in your phone, I used a micro USB cable that I just found in a dumpster, and it worked fine. I would also recommend that you use a 3.3 foot long one, going longer (for example using a 6 foot long cable) will make your life quite a bit more difficult later in the adding of the wire.
• Paracord: Choose whatever color paracord that you want, it's up to you :D I used just a plain black with a little white stitching, kind of bland, but it's what I had on hand, but still, I must say, it is still heaps better than a regular charging cables rubber insulation.
• Solder: For soldering
• Heat shrink tubing: This stuff is pretty cheap and super useful, if you don't have it, get it. It will be used to clean up the endpoints on the cable, and make it look more professional.
• Electrical tape: This will be used to insulate the wires to keep them from shorting
• Soldering Iron: You'll need this to solder a couple of wires together, if you don't have too much soldering experience, or you suck at soldering (like me), don't worry, it is super easy soldering this time around
• Wire cutters: To cut and strip wires

First thing first, you need some measurements. So, grab your charging cable and measure how long the wire is. NOT THE WHOLE CABLE, just the wire, leave out the connectors.

Mine turned out to be about 3 feet, 2 inches (always round up).

I then took that measurement, and cut a length of paracord, and a length of wire, both of them 3 feet 2 inches long.

*I would actually recommend making it an inch or two longer then the cable, as when you are sliding it on, it seems to "contract" and lose length...

You should now have a piece of wire, a piece of paracord, and a charging cable, all the same (or similar) length.

Now to prep the paracord, basically, what you do is

you grab the inside 'filling' of the paracord (usually white) and pull it out, all the way. You should now have a white string, and a hollow 'felt tube', the 'felt tube' part is what we are going to be using, so do what you want with the other part.

Note: It can be quite useful and make the job much less tedious and annoying if you give the end of your paracord a little melt over a flame, do it just for a split second, and it will prevent your paracord from fraying later on, but if you do it for too long, the opening will get smaller and will make it harder to get the wire through the paracord.

From what I've figured out, Most charging cable wires fit into a hollow piece of paracord, but snugly, which prevents us from adding out wire in as well. This is mostly because of the insulation in the wire being extremely thick. The solution? Remove the insulation, as simple as that.

Take a knife or some kind of sharp blade and score the insulation all the way down the wire. It shouldn't take much effort to go all the way through the wire, so be careful, and have a steady hand. Don't be afraid to go slowly.

After you've scored it the whole length of the wire, then separate the insulation from the wire (as pictured) and then cut it at the ends of wire. You can toss the insulation, as we will not be using it later.

You will now most likely have this weird metal stuff surrounding all of the wires. Mine actually looked quite cool exposed and would be pretty awesome looking if it had a clear coating around the whole thing. But, that's not the point of this instructable.

Now, remove the metal stuff by cutting and pulling it off. Be careful not to break any of the 4 internal wires though. When I was beginning to pull it off, I thought... This is going to be harder than I originally though, but then I was able to loosen it and unravel the whole thing fairly quickly. The key is to start at one of the ends, and snip all of the wires on that end, then slide the whole thing down towards the other end, then just start cutting it off. Then, after trying to cut it off, I again realized that this is going to take a while. A little note: the wire stuff is a huge pain, it pokes you and doesn't cut well. And it's not fun to try and get off. In the end I got it off by cutting down the center with scissors. Then get the second layer of metal off (luckily this one's a lot easier, you just have to unwrap it) and at long last, you now only have four glorious wires. Now cut them... (I'd read the next step before you cut the wires... it'll make it quite a bit easier.

Now to cut the phone cable in order to get the paracord on. I started cutting the first wire about one third (see note below) in, and then cut the second one about 2 inches from the first cut, then the third cut would be 2 inches from the second cut, and the fourth would be 2 inches from the third cut. We do this because when we re-solder the cable, 1) There is a much less chance of shorting the wire, 2) It makes it a lot easier to solder, and 3) It makes it so there's not a thick spot where all the solder joints are.

*What I learned though, is that you should make your cuts closer to the end of the wires, as it makes putting on the paracord a whole lot easier. Don't start about 1/3 in start maybe 2 or 3 inches from one of the connectors

Next is to slide on the paracord. Take the longer half of the charging cable and start sliding it through the paracord. It helps to tape the ends of the wire, so it doesn't get caught on the paracord as your sliding it through. Slide the paracord until the wire comes out the other end. Then tape the paracord (as in the picture), so it doesn't slide back down.

Also, Slide on 2 pieces of inch long heat shrink tubing for later.