Cheap, tiny diameter heatshrink tubing.

[x88x]

I love DealExtreme... I've been buying stuff from them for about 3-4 years now, and they still surprise me sometimes. :D

Anyways, to the point...
Really cheap heatshrink tubing. IDK about the quality, but I'm going to be ordering some later this week; I'll let you all know how it is once I get it.

Everything from 0.8mm to 45mm diameter tubing for $1.97 to $3.99 (respectively) for 5m.
http://www.dealextreme.com/products.dx/category.410~search.heat%20shrink

(btw, for anyone not familiar with DealExtreme; shipping is free)

EDIT:
oops, sorry, I looked closer, and the stuff 10mm and larger is in 1m lengths. Still, $3.99 for 1m of 45mm (~1.77in) dia tubing is pretty good.

[Oneslowz28]

Nice find. Time to stock up.

[SXRguyinMA]

yea the little stuff is hard to find, thanks!

[BuzzKillington]

I used to swear by DX until one order of flashlights never came. The order was shipped at different times because apparently they were out of the one type of flashlights so I got a knife and batteries... then later I got a flashlight.... then never saw the rest. That was ~5 months ago.

Moral of the story is check each item for it's availability and if it's not in house and ready to ship, do not place it in the same order with something else that is in fact ready to ship. I wouldn't place large orders either.

[x88x]

Hmm, interesting. A friend of mine recently (~4 months ago) had a couple small items from his order never show up too. IDK, I've never had a problem with them, even with large ($100+) orders, but I guess they do happen sometimes. Did you try to contact them about it?

[BuzzKillington]

a few e-mails but no responses. I tried calling once but they werent there and never bothered to call again.

I decided to get ahold of dx again and when I tried it gave me this:
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/359/40683471.jpg

Note: the order was placed 9-27-09 and the only response I got was "please allow 2 more weeks." lol

[x88x]

Well, neither of the heatshrink packs I got were in stock, so even though I got the rest of the order 2-3 weeks ago, the smaller diameter pack came in late last week and the larger diameter pack came in today.

Anyways, pics!

First we have the larger diameter pack (6/7/8/9/10mm), 3m of each:
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/20100517_006.jpg

And the smaller diameter pack (0.8/1.5/2.5/3.5/4.5mm), again 3m of each:
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/20100514_003.jpg

That 0.8mm stuff is tiny!

Quality looks great, better than the stuff I got from Harbor Freight. Going off some stuff printed on the tubing, it looks like it's this:
http://www.woer.com/productcatalogue/dz%28e%29-page1.html

At the very least, it's definitely Woer, and judging from this site (http://www.justradios.com/heatshrinktubing.html), it looks like it's definitely a great deal! DealExtreme FTW! :D

[nevermind1534]

I'm wondering if the stuff on Digi-Key might be better for the price, though. I'd rather be using a known US brand (3M) than an unknown Chinese brand.

Still not a bad deal, nonetheless.

[x88x]

/shrugs
IDK, it depends on what you're doing, I suppose. For general purpose stuff I can't imagine it actually mattering overly much. This stuff feels plenty high quality, about the level of the stuff I ordered off P-PCs a while ago (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=44_33). I forget what company made that, I'll check when I get home.

[nevermind1534]

I'm sure it's not bad, but I think of the crumbling rubber wires in the radios that I work on; I'm sure that the rubber on those wires was great when it was new, but that's just me. I'm sure that this is great and of sufficient quality for most things that don't need to last 50+ years.

[x88x]

Haha, you have a good point there, idk what the really long term viability of any of the stuff I've tried is. Though, if I'm ever making something I expect to last 50+ years, I think I'll be able to afford top quality stuff for that. :D

[billygoat333]

hmm... I was thinking about instead of sleeving the cables on my xbox mod, just heatshrinking the whole thing (entire length of cables probably = 1m or less in the entire case lol) this might be viable. or I dont know, might be a stupid idea and I should just sleeve the cables. haha good find anyway.

[x88x]

Heatshrinking everything would certainly be interesting, but once heatshrink tubing cools it hardens, so you would have to get all the cables in place, and then heat it. Like I said, it would definitely be an interesting affect, but difficult to pull off.

[billygoat333]

I'm still kicking the idea around, I have a spare junk xbox to play around with and might try it with the extra cabling and such before I commit to the working one.