20 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 42.1 ms ] thread
I'm going to have nightmares about waking up restrained in this thing.
Most HVAC contractor counters carry packs of longer ones for insulating ductwork (though not as heavy duty as what's pictured).
This would need quite a lot of force to overcome friction and cinch tight, no? Aside from some fun marketing, the problem is already solved by items like ratchet tie downs, Velcro straps or even just cord/rope with the right bundling knots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_down_strap

They're 47 inches long. Amazon (UK) has 48 inch long zip ties for $14.45 (pack of 12), 60 inch long for $18. Not quite as thick or wide, sure... But that's not what was in the headline :P
I could put all of my cables in one giant bundle...
The supersized option in a line of products is always funny for some reason.

Last week I chuckled upon seeing this online store's inventory of coffee makers: ...10 cups, 12 cups, 18 cups, 50(!) cups: https://www.bialetti.com/it_en/shop/coffee-makers.html?cups=...

(The 50 cups option turned out to be a decorative piece.)

Well I dunno, if you need to attach a car to the roof of your garage to work on the transmission and you've run out of duct tape this seems like the perfect solution.
The maximum theoretical size for a zip archive is 16 exabytes (2^64 bytes). It's free if you have where to store it.
So, it's a overpriced plastic strap.

Can get 10 m polypropylene strap or ratchet straps for $10 that does the same job and holds more.

Alternately, just loop many zip ties together when you need more length.

Doh.

This is one of those lessons games like factorio teach you.

For example, at some point you should replace super fast conveyor belts with trains (because of distance) or robots (because of density).

Every paradigm gets stretched too far and you have to change your thinking.

I used 250lb zip ties to hold down my convertible top in the open position, as an alternative to paying $2000 to replace the motors. When I'd need to put up the top I'd cut the zip ties and when I'd want to put it down I'd put on a new set.

With California weather and an indoor parking spot I only ended up using about one pack (10? 12?) a year.

Used in space but NOT cleared for attaching the Space Shuttle to the fuel tank.
I'm not gonna go down the list, but any "looks down his nose at everyone without a degree" type mechanical engineer (you know the type I'm talking about) can provide you a litany of reasons that a zip tie gets inefficient at this scale and why other options are better.

This product likely exists because of a stupid bureaucracy somewhere that has approved zip ties but is such a labor wasting pain in the ass to deal with $75 zip ties are cheaper than getting permission to use more reasonable options.

I read the title as “The largest zip file…”
(comment deleted)