Electronics > Beginners
Shrink tubing
fixit7:
--- Quote from: Brumby on July 02, 2019, 06:28:37 am ---Another thing to consider is the lengths supplied. Just how well does the length of those pieces fit your usage?
If the pieces come in 5cm lengths and you need 4cm for a particular joint, then you will be wasting 20%. Often, you wouldn't bother cutting it off so you'd just leave it as "extra" sleeving - but it still represents a waste. If you buy a 1m length, then you can cut each and every piece to the exact size you need and not waste anything - except, perhaps, for the very last piece of that 1m length.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for showing me to consider the length.
I do throw away a lot of 1/4 inch or shorter lengths.
Cubdriver:
I generally get it from McMaster-Carr. They have many different varieties, shipping is quick and the quality is good.
FWIW.
-Pat
CatalinaWOW:
While I have purchased a variety of these things over the years, and never had one "not work", there is variability which may be important to some. I have encountered ones which require more heat to shrink, and encountered some which remain somewhat flexible after shrinking while others turn almost rigid. Colored versions have had a variety of shades of similar colors. Since none of this was very important to me I didn't take note of the vendor, nor do I really believe any of the low cost vendors would be totally consistent.
If those properties matter to you, or others such as thickness, I would stick with major brand names and either contact their application engineers or read their literature to pick the type you want. Then stick with reputable vendors who know the differences between the products.
Brumby:
One more factor that can be important is the shrink ratio. That is, how much the tubing will shrink when heated.
A ratio of 2:1 is the most common I've encountered - which is where the tubing will shrink to one half of the supplied diameter. This is usually quite satisfactory for a lot of situations where you choose tubing which is only just big enough to slide over the target area. If you buy any nondescript heat shrink, you should expect it to have a 2:1 shrink ratio.
There are other shrink ratios and I have seen 3, 4 and 4.5 to 1 - but if you check out Mouser or Digikey you will find a dozen or more all the way up to 6:1. These higher shrink ratios are useful when you have a big variation of the size of the elements you need to cover with one piece, For example, where you have connections to a switch and you want to encase the switch body and the incoming cable with a single piece.
There are some other parameters you might be interested in (for example - how thick the wall will be when fully shrunk), just to get a feel for what is available - but I'll leave you to explore the parametric search of places like Mouser, Digikey, etc.
tooki:
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on July 02, 2019, 09:50:22 pm ---I have encountered ones which require more heat to shrink, and encountered some which remain somewhat flexible after shrinking while others turn almost rigid.
--- End quote ---
Do you have any recommendations for flexible heat shrink? I’ve run into the “almost rigid” issue when using heat shrink for strain relief.
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