best course of action for a wire with casing burnt off?

vintagegamer

Well-known member

Donor 2024
Joined
Sep 1, 2007
Messages
21,092
Reaction score
2,602
Location
Bear, Delaware
best course of action for a wire with casing burnt off?

In my Time Warp pin there's a wire down by the tilt area that's over a foot of wire "carefully wrapped" (cough) in electrical tape. I want to make this area of the pin safer so, what are my choices?

1. cut that section of wire out and solder in a new piece?

2. buy some kind of heat shrink to put over the existing wire since it's working fine, aside from being all nekkd?

Now taking suggestions. Thanks!
 
3. Wrap the exposed section of wire carefully in electrical tape.

:D

I'd probably just replace that hunk of wire. You can cut it where the damage begins, splice on a new piece (insulating the splice with shrink tubing), and replace it. If you were to just use shrink tubing on the wire, you'd still have to cut it or unsolder one end to get the tubing on - you might as well just replace the hunk of wire while you're at it. Would probably be faster, not to mention more flexible (shrink tubing is pretty stiff when "shrunk").

-Ian
 
Vintage, Retro,

Don't they have heat shrink tubing that is split?

As for myself, I use liquid tape whenever I have to cover bare wires.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
Don't they have heat shrink tubing that is split?

But then it wouldn't stay on. Sure, you can cut heat shrink tubing down the side and shrink it on, but it's not going to stay. It won't tighten around the wire - it'll just drop off.

As for myself, I use liquid tape whenever I have to cover bare wires.

Ick. :D

I hate that stuff. Always just makes a nasty mess, at least in my experience. Regular electrical tape at least doesn't drip all over. Philco radios were, at one time, made with all rubber coated wire. Over time, the rubber insulation all cracks and falls off, leaving you with a mess of under-chassis wiring that's a short circuit waiting to happen, if it hasn't already. Not much choice but to rewire the whole thing, or slide shrink tubing on to everything. Every once in a while, you come across one that someone has gone at with liquid tape. Yeah, totally doesn't work well.

The liquid tape is OK to seal a joint (especially if you can dip it in), but trying to paint it on a length of exposed wire just never comes out good.

-Ian
 
I would just replace the whole wire.
Why?
If the insulation on the wire is breaking down due to age replacing prevents anymore section of insulation falling off.
If the insulation of the wire fell off due to heat. Copper stranded wire that goes thought a series of heat and cool cycles can get brittle. Replacement means not worring about breaks down the line.
if the insulation melted off becuase it was shorted. Soft copper and weaken copper wire not something you want in your pinball machine.
Eletrical tape. A pain to wrap around and around the wire.
Liquid tape. Easier install but messy..

I vote for replace the wire. Clean and easy. And if you sell it down the line. There is no What wrong with that wire and I want 100 off the price talk. Laughs.
 
The reason I use liquid tape was because wrapping a wire tended to result in it unwrapping over time. The trick is not to spread it on too thick so it drips all over the place and apply multiple coats. My biggest problem though is the drying time.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
i would replace it or cut and solder a piece in and heatshrink any solder points.

Here's my reasoning:

Electrical tape: Messy looking, leaves nasty residue if you ever want to remove it, if you don't get the UL approved stuff it will eventually unwrap.

Liquid tape: messy, but better than electrical tape, wire should be replaced as it's prolly started to oxidize

Heat shrink: Can be a pain to get on if your not cutting the wire, also same as liquid tape and wire should be replaced due to oxidation
 
Vintage, Retro,

Don't they have heat shrink tubing that is split?

As for myself, I use liquid tape whenever I have to cover bare wires.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Never seen split heat shrink myself. Sounds like it would defeat the purpose of it.

For me, I would cut it out, splice in new and be done with it.

I would be askin gmyself why is this wire like this, what caused the insultaion to come off? Heat? If heat, then you got another issue or the bare wire is not thick enough gauge for the demand on it, thus cut out and replace with new.
 
Back
Top Bottom