New Invetion: "Oops Tape"

This stuff has been around for ~20 years or more? I can't remember when I first saw it, but it was sometime ago. For some examples see:

I never forget things like slipping on heatshrink tubing before soldering or PL-259 Knurl nuts or housing shells before crimping on the pins... Ya, right ;-)

If you haven't made this mistake, then you have done bugger all in actual electronics construction......sorry Ivan, but only God is perfect and doesn't make mistakes.......

Andrew VK3BFA.

Also works great to repair/reinforce insulation on an existing wire or connection without having to dissassemble it first. Heat Shrink Tape is an excellent product for many applications - not JUST for idiots.

Maybe not but I bet he has questioned using good material on some in this group.

--Andy Asberry--

------Texas-----

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:56:24 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ivan Vegvary" quickly quoth:

I love the stuff. It's called "insulation", Ivan.

"Oops!" is when you solder the connection and then find that you forgot to slide the connector or the shrink sleeve over the wire beforehand.

-- Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson

Only idiots need to waterproof 3 and 4-way joints.

Rf connectors, cannon plugs, strain reliefs and panel boxes, I've made that mistake way too often.

Wes

Some just can't think beyond the mindset they are in, or the problem they are looking at. I agree it is hard to fit heatshrink tubing onto 3 or more way joint. :)

cheers T.Alan

Only idiots need to waterproof 3 and 4-way joints.

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I'll remember that the next time I'm wiring up a trailer plug on the back of a salt spreader that tows a liquid calcium trailer.

I always thought that white and blue stuff was corrosion caused by salty water and liquid calcium getting at the copper wiring connection, but you have certainly straightened me out.

Hell! I won't even tape them up. The air will be good for them!

agree - but...

You do offset splicing so you cannot get a between conductor short, (and then you dont have to insulate every conductor, makes for a low profile joint if you ever have to pull it back through an entry hole) them you use either

1.Butyl Rubber with a layer of insulation tape over it, or 2.Use the RIGHT heatshrink made for the job, it has an integral inner coating of "Gloop" (its similar to hot melt glue sorta thing) that will waterproof it.

Andrew VK3BFA.

PS - still got me trade certificates as a cable jointer hanging on the wall - and even so, still forget sometimes to put on the boot BEFORE I solder the connector....thats why Method 1 above is still taught in trade school....

That is the neetest stuff. It came out while I was still in the electronics business, must have been 25 or 30 years ago. Can still almost see the ads, now why didn't I think of that. :-) ...lew...

Yep, real neat. Originally developed to provide a seal between hard nylon jacket telephone cable, and the lead wipe that encased the joint. Had a nice little feature on it - a blue dot pattern that changed colour to white when it got to the right shrinking temperature. (Which was done with a "soft flame" burner on a propane torch.) Made by a yank company, RAYCHEM...more widely available now, even the local electricians supply shop has it. Probably a Chinese knock off. Bloody expensive though. But works real good, especially if the joint is going to be under 20ft of water all its life...

Andrew VK3BFA.

also works great for joining a messenger to the wire you are trying to fish through a tight hole. I also use it instead of "whipping" splices in stranded rope.

Bruce-in-Bangkok (correct email address for reply)

I had the same impression as you - the goo seems like the flexible PVC hot melt glue. So a couple times when I've needed a piece of self sealing heat shrink and didn't have any handy, I've made do with hot melt glue. Get a piece of regular shrink tube in position and squirt a charge of hot melt into the joint from both ends of the tubing then quickly shrink with a heat gun. I wouldn't trust it for a splice to my well pump 250ft underground, but it seems to work pretty well in less critical apps.

Huh?? I'd love to see a picture of that - you couldn't get a reliable join like that, and I was a construction splicer.

BTW, they did not use much Nylon at all for telephone cable sheath - usually HDPE or XLPE. PVC for "indoor" cables.

They only did pot-wiped lead splice cases when the splice was all lead sheathed cables, at least AFAIK.

Necessity may be the mother of invention (and getting off on time on a Friday when you don't have the right case with you) but you did NOT leave a splice cobbled together using 'unapproved methods' for more than a few days before coming back and rebuilding it with a proper splice case. Especially if it was on a pressurized cable leg...

You end up with a wet cable that causes a service outage and a few hundred (or thousand) angry customers, and they tend to figure out who did the deed. And that someone's going to get a few unpaid days off.

If they wanted to transition between lead and plastic sheath cables they used a cast-iron or 'Preformed Line Products' splice case with mastic tape or rubber tape compression seals to the cable sheath.

The blue dots were nice, but the Raychem shrink sleeves had an even handier feature - a stainless steel slide 'zipper' (no teeth) with the hot-melt glue on the inner mating surfaces, so you didn't have to have an end available or cut an existing splice open to slide the heat shrink sleeve on over the top.

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