Electronics > Beginners
Can we talk tape?
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KL27x:
There's nothing wrong with WD-40, in particular. Almost every specialty oil is somewhat a snake oil. For some reason we allow this. It's a protected industry. A high school friend worked in a lube company, and he said as much. Government has a certain amount of cheese to hand out, and wink wink nudge nudge, some specific company gets the contract for mixing up w/e magic snot they need 200 tons of at $300.00 an ounce. It doesn't matter what niche sport, tool, industry uses oil. Someone will sell you an oil "specifically formulated for maximum performance," and fuckall if you can tell the difference between it and mineral oil.

Sewing machine oil. Air tool oil. Gun oil. Pellgun oil. Norton honing oil is funny because they mark it "food safe." So you know it's 100% mineral oil. Probably more than half of these special oils are just mineral oil at best. Then there's "baby oil." They have to add some stuff to it to make it smell like babies, or something. But you can buy scent-free baby oil, of course. Cuz putting mineral oil on a baby just sounds wrong, I suppose. 

WD-40 is popular because they put their snake oil in an aerosol can. Gun dudes will swear on Ballistol, which is of course specially formulated WD-40 for cleaning guns.   
james_s:
WD-40 is a decent water displacer, but it's much too thin to make a good lubricant, it's not great as a penetrating oil, it's not all that great of a solvent, as far as I can tell it's mostly kerosene. Virtually any product that tries to be everything ends up being a compromise that is inferior at almost anything.

That's not to say that every specialized oil product is some kind of magic, but they certainly aren't all the same. You wouldn't want to fill your engine crankcase with power steering fluid, fill a hydraulic system with diesel fuel, fill a transmission with salad oil or try to use wheel bearing grease as a penetrating oil. Different products have wildly different viscosity and additives.
KL27x:
Nope, I don't mess with car stuff. That stuff is seriously designed for maximum performance. I spring for the fully synthetic, and I don't care what it costs. If it's snake oil, I fell for it hook line and sinker. :) It's not just the google that convinced me. I had a car that ran hot (super high dry heat/climate). Switching to synthetic moved the needle back to normal. 

I have two kinds of oil in my shop for the last 10 years. Motor oil and mineral oil. When I buy something that comes with a little starter bottle of "Z Company Apple-Slicing Machine Oil," I drop it in the bin and use mineral oil on it.   
james_s:
I run synthetic in my turbo cars, regular oil in naturally aspirated cars and other equipment. Motor oils these days are overall a lot better than they used to be, the synthetics are slightly more resistant to coking when high temperatures are involved (such as turbocharger bearings) and a little better at holding their viscosity. The most important thing by a long shot though is to make sure there's always oil in there, and change the oil before it turns to sludge and the filter before it gets clogged up.
Doctorandus_P:
A trick I sometimes use is to wind tape around some cables with the sticky side on the outside.
Make sure you pull on the tape to stretch it a bit to make the bundle tight.
After a few turns, reverse the winding direction, so you stick glue to glue.

Final result is that the tape is only sticking to itself, and will not leave glue residue when it is removed.
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