Author Topic: How do you take care of your cables?  (Read 3164 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline casinadaTopic starter

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 599
  • Country: us
How do you take care of your cables?
« on: January 30, 2013, 06:45:03 am »
I noticed that my Pomona Banana cables are getting harder. Is there any way to rejuvenate them? On some of them the cable degraded and became brittle so they are already ruined.
Is there a way to re solder the ends of the Pomona stackable banana plugs?
 :-//
 

Online Huluvu

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 91
  • Country: de
    • ECM Home
Re: How do you take care of your cables?
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2013, 09:57:28 am »
How old are those mentioned cables?
I own some very old cables which may became a little bit dirty or even be damaged by excessive use, but no brittle  :-//
Have you exposed them to direct sunlight for a long time period?

I would not recommend to re solder them.

Rgds
Arne
"Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no..."
 

Offline ftransform

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 728
  • Country: 00
Re: How do you take care of your cables?
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2013, 11:56:39 am »
I wonder if the product Armor-all can help extend the life of cables. I had an OLD triplet multimeter which had the symptoms that casinada describes.
I think they may have been made of rubber though.

« Last Edit: February 09, 2013, 12:14:04 pm by ftransform »
 

Offline PedroDaGr8

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1283
  • Country: us
  • A sociable geek chemist
Re: How do you take care of your cables?
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2013, 11:20:09 pm »
Armor-All is not the best. It's pretty much derided on auto-detailing forums because it can actually draw moisture out of the plastic/rubber over time. Which necessitates applying it more and more often.

There are a variety of other types recommended. The one I use the most often is 303 Aerospace Protectant. I use it at work on the butyl rubber gloves and o-rings on our glove box because the fluorescent lights and chemical fumes wreak havoc on them.
The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." -George Carlin
 

Offline ftransform

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 728
  • Country: 00
Re: How do you take care of your cables?
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2013, 03:03:55 am »
Armor-All is not the best. It's pretty much derided on auto-detailing forums because it can actually draw moisture out of the plastic/rubber over time. Which necessitates applying it more and more often.

There are a variety of other types recommended. The one I use the most often is 303 Aerospace Protectant. I use it at work on the butyl rubber gloves and o-rings on our glove box because the fluorescent lights and chemical fumes wreak havoc on them.

Are you sure about that, I thought around 1990 armor-alls formula changed in order to avoid this problem.
 

Offline nukie

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 799
  • Country: au
Re: How do you take care of your cables?
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2013, 04:07:06 am »
Aerospace 303 works for me, not just for looks but it slows down degrading due to UV damage. I am not sure if it would rejuvenate old materials. I believe there is no general purpose product that works on all material.



 

Offline casinadaTopic starter

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 599
  • Country: us
Re: How do you take care of your cables?
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2013, 06:02:36 am »
I had the Cables Boxed in the Garage for probably 18 years, they were not exposed to light but probably changes in temperature. It is very dry in here and the temperature in the garage can vary from 40F to 90F
In general I use soapy water to clean anything electronic, sometimes I use GooGone to get rid of more stubborn gunk. Most of the Pomona cables were used when I got them so I don't know in what environment they were exposed to. I know that they aged differently so probably they were exposed to different elements or I got a particular batch that wasn't very good to start with.
 

Offline billclay

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 82
  • Country: us
Re: How do you take care of your cables?
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2013, 11:32:32 pm »
The cables have probably lost some of their dielectric strength in that condition, so I would not use them for any hazardous voltages, as there will be leakage.
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf