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If I have a long HDMI cable, can I coil it and try to hold it in place by means of an electrical tape?

My current setup is such that I only need about 60 cm of wire to connect my monitor to my macbook pro. But when I look for cables to buy I cant find any cable less than 120 cm in length (4 feet).

Prasanth
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  • Your question is not really about electronic design, so unfortunately it's off topic. However, here's a ~90cm HDMI cable: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024008&p_id=3871&seq=1&format=2; they also have ~45cm. – JYelton Oct 14 '13 at 03:13
  • i saw a couple of questions regarding cables on this site. thats why I asked here. – Prasanth Oct 14 '13 at 09:03
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    Coiling is never bad for cables (except certain high power applications). Kinking (bending very sharply) is nearly always bad. – pjc50 Oct 14 '13 at 09:33
  • Not a problem. There is a tendency to believe that coiling a cable produces an "inductor", but this is incorrect, since the net current flow through the cable is zero -- whatever flows up on one wire flows back through an adjacent wire, cancelling the magnetic field. Of course, it's generally best to use the shortest cable possible, and there are certainly shorter HDMIs available. – Daniel R Hicks Oct 14 '13 at 11:05

3 Answers3

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It won't be an issue to coil HDMI cable up. It won't cause signal deterioration.

Rule of thumb is to always use a shortest cable possibly needed for your application. This will save you from issues like signal loss, interference, etc.

HDMI is shielded digital connection and error correction is taken care by DSP / Micros.

Chetan Bhargava
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There should be no problem doing this. HDMI cable is shielded and should not interfere with itself. I've seen people coil it and put it behind drywall with no issues. If you coil it try to make the coil as large as possible (so you have a gradual angle change as this is better for high speed signals).

Alternatively this website will probably have the cable you want at a reasonable price:

Monoprice

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No, there is no "bad effects". There is a positive effect. Weak actually, but positive.

Coiling a cable will increase the inductance of the all wires in the cable and this way will make it less prone to high frequency common-mode EMI.

Maybe you saw that some cables (maybe this one as well) have a cylinders on their both ends. These are ferrite beads that rises the inductance of the wires with this purpose. This way, the wires form an EMI filter.

johnfound
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  • Whoever downvoted this, please note that the reference is to common mode interference in which the current on both the signal and the shield is in the same direction, in contrast to the differential mode of the intended signal where the signal and shield currents are in opposite directions. – Chris Stratton Oct 14 '13 at 18:10