Heat shrinking rather small wires :p

[Ali_2k]

I'm gouing to be extending a 14 wire cable for my LCD mod, and im wanting to heatshrink the soldered connections to make sure they wont come apart.

I havent used it befor, so does it give a good grip on the wires? and does anyone know where i can get some that will fit well around a wire from an IDE ribbon, im trying to solder two single wires from an IDE cable:

==========--- ---==========

this probly makes no sense, but thanks for any help given :D

[wingman358]

They sell packs of heatshrink tubing at RadioShack for like $4. I'm not sure but I don't think they sell just one type, rather an assortment. So you get some really small tubing, flat tubing, really wide, and so on. The heatshrink tubing (if you do it right) works amazingly well. If you plan on using a lot of heatshrinking and you have a few extra bucks, you might want to pick up a heat gun. I'm not sure if they sell them at RadioShack, but I know they sell them at Home Depot.

[Rankenphile]

I'd reccommend getting a heat gun, as well. They're great for all sorts of things, like bending plastics and stripping paint, too, not just heat shrinking.

It took me a long time to find one at Home Depot, because one of the goons there told me to look in the tool dept. A mistake. Look in the paint department and you should find one - Mine cost me about $19.

[crazybillybob]

Radio shack heat shrink is pretty crappy. Check out harborfreight (http://www.harborfreight.com)
The sell both heat guns ($19) and heat shrink tube, in many sizes (it's pretty good quality too!) and the prices are low.

Crazybillybob


Oh, most good heat shrink tube will shrink to 1/2 it's original size.