Earbud cord wrapper in 5 minutes or less!

Love your shiny new iphone, but sick of tangling up that darn cord on your earbuds?

Grab an old credit card and a pair of scissors. Boom! You are about to solve one of life's least important problems.

Step 1: Snip card in half.

Cut the card in half, lengthwise.

Want bonus points? Round them corners.

Want more bonus points? Use a defunct baby-bell calling card!

Step 2: Notch Away!

At either end cut two notches on opposing sides.

Notches should be angled roughly as pictures.

Take care to make the opening of your notch only slightly bigger than cord (about 1/16th of an inch)

Make the interior of the notch wider than the opening, but narrower than your plug (about 3/16th of inch)

Note: Spandox suggests using a hole punch. Great idea.

Step 3: Wrap Cord

Insert your plug end into the notch and wrap you cord up neatly.

When you get to the buds, tuck them into their notch.

Voila.

Step 4: Usage

You can unwrap cord on either end to a length that suits your need.

I usually keep my iphone in my shirt pocket, as you can imagine without this cord wrapper my cord is always in the way.

Comments

[hde jong]

Nice! We've been working on this problem too. What do you guys think of our product? www.cuneau.com

[mrElliot]

This looks amasing!
Can i buy one or make one from anywhere

[cherishcherub]

NB: 

my dads an electrical engineer, and after one second(he always tries to find faults instead of the good stuff) he said coiling the wire like that kinda makes the earphones faulty after a long time, 

[Rmstrjim]

Yup, however that will take a fair bit of time, and most people don't coil their cords properly in the first place...

The greater risk is insulation abrasion from the rough edges of the card.

A softer type of plastic would avoid this problem... ( think the top of a pringles can)

[stopherbailey]

When i made mine I rounded all corners off and sanded them. I know you aren't supposed to store your Ibuds like this as the folding of the cable will eventually break the fine filaments of copper cable that is used for the wiring but i only use it for the apple ones that came free with my IPhone, i wouldn't use this for any expensive ear buds.

[stopherbailey]

Heres one I knocked up. I had looked at yours but didn't have access to a computer when I made mine and had to go on memory and put my own twist on it..
Before anyone says anything it is an out of date, cancelled debit card that I used so no ID theft issues(I hope)

[aomastu]

love it

[SurfRW]

This works just as well with strong paper! Thanks for the instructable

[Windy Miller]

Hmm, don't fancy risking my Skull Candy's with this, so decided to use a mini egg tub. Plus its purple, which is cool lol!

Windy

[kpataska]

Great Instructable!!!

I'm thinking heavy duty hole punch and my heavy-duty scissors...

Going to look for my old, FULLY DEGAUSSED Visa card now!!!

[ivaneduardo747]

I made two!

[ivaneduardo747]

And after a week they ended up being a pain in to use...

[Phoghat]

I've been looking for something like this. I have Bose cans than I use on my iPod and the cord is more than 6 ' long (WTF?). I'm always getting tangled in the wire

[cx420ns]

i cut the picture of the cookie from the cookie box and use that.... cookiephones!
might work better if i didn't want to eat them all the time....

[catfish23]

I gave one of those for christmas, and instead of using a credit card, I used the hard white plastic that comes in the iPod box, which has the added benefit of looking like it was made by Apple and is more durable than a credit card. Thanks for the idea!

[georgewu108]

 haha. Wonderful christmas pressie

[sporter323]

Awesome! And to think that Levenger charges $18 for a leather one. I love this! Have already made two!

[cherishcherub]

Instead of using some ugly calling card,

pick up a good lookin gift card from any shop without putting money on...

3x Bonus points!

[Ricky_Maveety]

I was in Walmart yesterday when I noticed those credit card style gift cards.  Not the ones with a built in price, but the plain ones you can activate with any amount.

I asked how much they were without activation, and was told they were free. I did this project with one of those cards, and it works perfectly.  I used two types of hole punch (one from Circa and one plain), and created 8 slotted holes, 3 up each side and one at each end.

The cord wraps really nicely, and the card is attractive.  I left it credit card sized - since there is no information on it which could be stolen.

[NetReaper]

i used to wrap the cord for my headphones but it kept breaking them

[laradioken]

Wrapping the cord this way will eventually crimp/strip the wires inside and you'll need to replace the headphones.

[knoxbox]

great idea, the hole puncher worked great, I then took electrical tape and covered it, to make it a bit more stable, almost like it might snap, used my old license... works great. :) never thought of something like this but it a excellent idea.

[knoxbox]

oh ps now we need a great idea to keep that funky ear wax off the headphones... haha.

[ChancreScolex]

Clean your ears.

[lukaj2003]

ZING! 

[til14]

you should write an Instructable for that lol

[Travlnbard]

 GREAT! I am going to make one for every teen I know.

[ipod man14]

cool dude i made one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:-)

[chrisapalo]

Hey, this would be a cool thing to make, just an idea, make this double-sided out of a itunes gift card (a old one of course). Or make a clip to hold a ipod. Or for ipod shuffles just make some more room on the clip. Awesome idea!

[james.mcglashan]

nice idea great instructable i rated it.

[dilydan]

this is great i just made one of these but a bit differently I made an xtra slit at the top of the card Great instructable though thanks

[kingstreeguy]

I've been using empty 35mm plastic film canisters for earbuds and my cellphone headset. They stay protected in my pocket until ready to use. The clear ones from Fujifilm are best so you can see which earbuds are in there.

[ketas]

Poor little earphone cables. They just don't deserve what people do with them. Tying knots into them, winding them onto sharp-edged cards... This just makes me sad. You know, it breaks their heart. And they leave you all alone. Without your music... Seriously, they tend to break easily. Even high-end ones, not even talking about these very cheap ones that have one bare and one enamelled copper strand per channel (no, I'm not kidding, my jaw actually dropped open when I saw this).

[arashiodori]

Loop the cables in circles and use twistie ties to secure them... with a rather loose clip to hold the loop with the earbuds on it to the loops. Much better cable care, and still manages to be a tangle prevent-or.

[benhudson]

Yeah, that's what I thought. What's the best way of doing it? At the moment I wrap my cords around my Altoids Zen case, but it't not great. I like the instructable that uses the solder tape container, but I can't find any or love nor money.

[Dark]

I did mine using cardboard. I got a backpack from amazon and it came in a ups box. Try taping 2+ pieces together and cutting them together with an xacto blade. the cardboard is fairly flexible and gives way to the wire. Or you could use some stiff foam and cut it down to size with an xacto blade. Some sfiff foam, like that from a sandal might work too. Idle musings...

[Yerboogieman]

i use my licorice altoids case for my MP4 player

[madfoot]

yeah I'm with you. is this ok for those li'l wires? hrm.

[thekitz]

why dont you just wrap the cord around your ipod, mp3 player, cd player, walkman, cassette player(yeah i still have a casstte player lol),etc etc

[arashiodori]

Well, for one, most owners like to tie the cable, which is VERY bad for the cable's health. And second, you tend to scratch or break the screen when moving around or being pushed. :( Had a handphone screen crack from that.