What to measure
For a single cable, measure the jacket: heavy rubber extension leads for garden and site tools are commonly 11 to 13 mm. For a bundle, hold the cables together with a turn of tape and measure across the widest point. As a guide, three cables of the same size need a circle about 2.2 times one cable, and four need about 2.4 times: three 5.5 mm leads fill a 12 mm clip, and so do four 5 mm leads. If the bundle will grow, size the clip for the next cable now, because adding one later means a new clip.
Clearance, wall and material
A bundle is lumpy, so this page uses 0.4 mm of clearance for a bore of 12.4 mm, a 2 mm wall and a 100 degree opening. The gap is about 9.5 mm: wide enough to feed thin cables in one at a time, narrow enough that a single heavy lead still has to be pressed past the tips. If you will add and remove cables often, open the angle to 120 degrees. PETG suits a clip that gets opened repeatedly; PLA is acceptable for a bundle that is set once and left.
Printing
On a C-shaped face the clip covers about 28 by 14 mm of bed and stands 12 mm tall. The 2 mm wall is five lines of a 0.4 mm nozzle; set three perimeters or more so all five are shell, with no infill pattern inside the wall. No supports. If the bore comes out tight, which shows as a cable that will not slide after it is in, raise the clearance by 0.1 mm instead of scaling the whole part, so the screw hole keeps its size.
Fixing it
The tab is 12 mm long and 3 mm thick with a 4.2 mm hole for a 4 mm screw. A heavy lead hanging in a vertical drop pulls downwards on every clip, so mount the clip with its tab below the cable there and add one every 40 cm. Do not bundle mains leads tightly with data cables for long parallel runs, and never coil a loaded extension lead inside a row of clips: it needs to shed heat.
Outline drawing
Schematic, not to scale. The clip is 12 mm wide along the cable and about 13.9 mm high.
Parameters the generator will use
| Setting | Link parameter | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Model | model | pipe_clip |
| Cable or bundle diameter | diameter | 12 |
| Fit clearance | fit_clearance | 0.4 |
| Clip wall thickness | wall | 2 |
| Clip width along the cable | width | 12 |
| Opening angle, degrees | opening | 100 |
| Screw tab length | tab_length | 12 |
| Screw tab thickness | tab_thickness | 3 |
| Screw hole diameter | screw_diameter | 4.2 |
| Number of screw tabs | tabs | 1 |
All lengths are in millimetres. Outer size from these values: about 28.4 x 12 x 13.87 mm.
Open the generator with these values
This model needs the $7 licence key: one payment, one key, and it opens all five paid models. Get a licence key on Gumroad ($7)
The pipe and cable clip needs a licence key: without one the generator shows the model locked, lists the values from this link and fills them in as soon as you unlock. The fitted drawer organiser bin is the free model and downloads with no key.