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Cable stock & lengths
Stock lengths change how the cable rows of the bill of materials read; the panel rows are a separate count of cabinets (where, for instance, a half row is its own line). By default the bill of materials prints the distance it measured between panels, so a run comes out as something like 0.53 m (or 1.74 ft on a drawing set pinned to imperial). That is geometrically correct and completely unhelpful at the shop, because nobody stocks a 0.53 m cable.
Tell led.fyi which cable lengths you actually own and the BOM stops reporting distances and starts reporting what to pull off the shelf.
Setting your stock lengths
Select the project in the browser rail, then open Cable stock in the Inspector.
There are three lists (data, power and trunk) because those come off different shelves. Type the lengths you stock, separated by commas:
1000, 2000, 5000, 10000Lengths are typed in millimetres, matching the First cable field just above and, like every Inspector field, in both unit systems. Commas, semicolons, spaces and new lines all separate entries, so a column pasted out of a spreadsheet works too. Order does not matter; the list is sorted and de-duplicated for you, and anything that is not a positive whole number (a typo, a decimal, a zero) is dropped.
Each list is independent. If you fill in data cables and leave power blank, data rows print stocked lengths while power rows keep printing their measured distance.
Nothing changes until you fill something in
An empty Cable stock section is the same behaviour led.fyi has always had. Existing projects keep printing exactly what they printed before; you opt in per project.
How a length gets chosen
For each cable, led.fyi:
- measures the run,
- adds your service loop, if you set one,
- picks the smallest stocked length that still reaches.
So with 1 m / 2 m / 5 m stocked, a measured 0.75 m run and a measured 1.00 m run both become 1 m, and they merge into one BOM line with the combined count. A 3.78 m run becomes 5 m.
If a run is longer than everything you stock, led.fyi does not propose a cable that cannot reach. It falls back to printing the measured length.
This fitting happens on the bill of materials: the Inspector's read-out, the printed Bill of Materials block and the spreadsheet download. The cable-label CSV is not fitted: it keeps printing each jumper's measured length.
Changing an individual length
The automatic pick is only a starting point. In the BOM (computed) read-out, every cable-length row is a dropdown. Open it and choose a different length from your stock list. The app's own choice is marked (best fit).
An overridden row is outlined so you can see at a glance which lengths you set by hand. Pick (best fit) again to hand the row back to the app.
The dropdown lists lengths in the units this project's drawings currently print in: metres on a metric set, decimal feet on an imperial one, so what you pick reads back identically on the printed BOM.
You can choose a SHORTER cable than the measured run
The measured length is the distance between panel centres, and connectors are not at panel centres. If you stock a 0.43 m patch and know it reaches a run the app measured at 0.5 m, choose it. led.fyi will not stop you, and it will not quietly change it back.
Because this is a choice from your stock list rather than typed-in text, it survives everything: move panels, rewire the screen, regenerate the drawings. The row keeps the length you chose. If a change to the wall removes that length group entirely, the setting is kept rather than silently discarded.
The dropdown only appears once you have a stock list for that cable's family. Without one there is nothing to choose from, so the row stays plain text.
Service loop
Two allowances for how you dress cable on the wall. Both are applied to the measured run before the stocked length is chosen, so an allowance can push a run up to the next size:
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Service loop | Adds a percentage of the run (10 % turns 1.00 m into 1.10 m) | 0 % |
| Extra slack | Adds a fixed length to every run, in mm | 0 mm |
Leave both at 0 for no allowance. They apply to the assumed 30 m trunk run too, but not to home runs, which always use the First cable length as entered.
Presets: reusing a stock list
Most people work out of more than one inventory. Fill in the lists, type a name in Preset name, and press Save as preset to keep that stock list (both appear once at least one list has lengths in it and no preset is applied); the Preset dropdown then applies it to any project in one click. Choosing None (use measured lengths) in that dropdown clears all three lists from the project, putting it back to printing measured distances.
You can also build and tidy your library without any project open: File → Preferences… → Cable stock presets lets you add, rename, edit and delete presets directly.
Presets are yours: they are saved with your personal settings, work offline, and follow your account across machines when you are signed in. Name them whatever makes sense to you; led.fyi does not read anything into the name.
Editing a preset in Preferences never reaches back into a project that already applied it. See the warning below.
Once a preset is applied you also get:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Update preset | Saves the project's current lists back onto the preset |
| Reset from preset | Discards local changes and pulls the preset's lists back in |
| Delete preset | Removes it from your library; this project keeps its lengths |
A project keeps its own copy
Applying a preset copies the lengths into the project. Editing or deleting the preset later never changes a project you already issued paperwork for. Reopen a job from last year and it still prints what it printed then. That is deliberate. Use Update preset when you do want a change to travel back.
Which cables get a length
| Cable | Length |
|---|---|
| Panel-to-panel jumpers (data and power) | Measured between the panels, then fitted to your stock |
| First cables and backup feeds (home runs) | Your configured First cable length |
| Trunk cables (processor → switch) | 30 m plus your service loop, fitted to your trunk stock when you have one |
Home runs (rack to wall) have no geometry to measure, because processors, switches and distros are not placed in space. They use the First cable value from the Bill of materials section.
Trunk cables have no geometry either, and no per-project setting to borrow, so every trunk assumes 30 m. That is a deliberate house figure rather than anything looked up: trunk cable is cut and terminated to the room, so there is no standard length to read off a datasheet. Fill in the Trunk cables stock list and your own lengths take over: a shop that only carries 50 m runs will see 50 m instead.
Real, measured trunk runs need cable-entry geometry, which is not built yet, so treat the printed figure as an assumption a puller can correct, not a measurement.
Advanced
A folded Advanced section under the allowances controls how measured runs are grouped before they're matched to your stock:
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Round lengths to | Rounds every measured run up to this step, in mm, so runs a few millimetres apart share one BOM line; useful on an irregular or curved wall | 0 |
| Group past | While rounding is in effect: once a job has more distinct measured lengths than this, the step widens to at least 100 mm so the BOM stays readable | 12 |
At 0, Round lengths to means exact measured lengths on a project with no stock lists. Once you have filled in any stock list, 0 means the app's own 10 mm step (widening to 100 mm past Group past); type a value to use your own step instead.