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From: Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.raspberry-pi
Subject: Re: Seeking cable management ideas....
Date: 12 Jun 2024 15:02:22 +0100 (BST)
Organization: University of Cambridge, England
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bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
> Has anybody come up with an inexpensive way of organizing cables
> among groups of Raspberry Pi hosts? The problem tends to be power
> supplies. Most come with a fairly long cord and coiling it results
> in a sort of bird's nest. Shortening it might be possible for the
> older Pi's, but probably not for the later USB-C models. Stock
> length cables are better a foot long than an inch short, so in the
> end they're all at least a little too long.  

We made a cluster of 50 Pi4s in a 4U server chassis.  To avoid a cabling
nightmare much of the interconnect was via boards plugged into the GPIO. 
They provided power and USB-serial for the UART - it also allowed power
switching the Pi for hard resets.  Power was daisy chained from a big
PC PSU:
https://github.com/Cambridge-AdvancedOS/cam-power-uart-hat

At the back of the box was a big USB hub and an ethernet switch, from where
everything fed into a master controller Pi.

That was a custom build, but companies have similar solutions:
https://www.8086.net/products

Since the Pi only needs a 5V supply, putting in power via the GPIOs avoids
needing USB-C PSUs.

Theo