ZipStiks: cable management simplified

I’ve judged the NMMA’s Innovation Awards for nearly a decade, and in that time I’ve come to value innovation in its purest and simplest form, what I call palm-to-forehead innovation. When you see it, your natural reaction is to bounce your palm off your forehead in the universal gesture for “why didn’t I think of that?” When Robert Holmes of Xanigo Marine first showed me ZipStiks, I couldn’t help making the gesture. ZipStiks are a simple, clever, and, once you see them, obvious solution to a real problem.

Cable management is a skill. Some people are born with it and can look at a rat’s nest of wiring and see exactly how to clean it up. Others have to work much harder to deliver clean, tidy wiring. If you’ve seen much of my work on this site, you can probably guess which category I fall into. So I’m always happy to find tools that help me clean up messes of both my own creation and others’. ZipStiks are just such a tool.

I already described ZipStiks as palm to forehead simple. So, it’s appropriate they come to the market from a company focused on identifying problems for boaters they can solve. Xanigo Marine started out solving maintenance challenges, but with ZipStiks, they’re moving on to rigging challenges.

The 11-inch long plastic strips mount to a solid surface with the solid face to the surface and hollow portion facing out. ZipStiks mount either with flat head #8 stainless screws or adhesive. The company recommends several adhesives from Bostki, JB Weld, Plexus, and Permabond. Xanigo offers ZipStiks in packs of 50 for $112.50. At just a bit over two dollars per stick, affordability isn’t a problem.

That orientation leaves a channel under each segment for a zip tie to pass through. The channel accommodates multiple sizes of zip ties and holds them very securely. Each rectangle is one inch wide providing the opportunity to tie down cables as frequently as every inch. Additionally, the sticks also snap cleanly at any channel, so you can cut them to fit almost anywhere. ZipStiks can secure a wide variety of wires and hoses including those significantly larger in diameter than the stick itself. Currently, Xanigo recommends a gap between perpendicular sticks to radius corners. However, they plan to offer press together corner guides in the future.

In the photo above, a single ZipStik across the bottom of the board gives the wiring a channel to run along. If I need to change the wiring, I can simply cut the zip ties, add or remove wires, and resecure. And at just over $2.00 a stick, they’re cheap enough that I won’t think twice about including one in an install.

ZipStiks do have one limitation. You need about three inches of stick to get two usable zip tie locations, so they’re not ideal for the tightest spaces. For the most part, though, that’s a small price for wiring that looks like it was done by someone who was born with the cable management gene. Every time I look at that test board, my palm still drifts toward my forehead.