IS This The Right Electrical Tape

[Kisatchie]

I admit I'm abysmally ignorant when it comes to electricity. I'm still on the fence about whether to solder my track feeders to the bus or use 3M connectors. If I go with soldering, is this the right electrical tape to insulate the connections?

https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/54041488?item=54041488&fromRR=Y


Thanks for any help.


Hmm... what's a good tape
for taping Kiz's mouth
shut...?

[woodone]

I would try to use heat shrink tubing - If you must use tape ( 3M) use Scotch Super 33

[mu26aeh]

That's what I used. 

Kind of hard to use heat shrink for feeder connections.  Would have to thread all of that on before doing the connection, no ?

[Kisatchie]

 

Kind of hard to use heat shrink for feeder connections.  Would have to thread all of that on before doing the connection, no ?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.


Hmm... that's Kiz's first
thought this week...

[Carolina Northern]

That's a good tape. Beware of cheap tapes, the adhesive will ooze out after a while making it very messy to do anything later.

Another thought that I'm trying on my current layout is liquid electrical tape. Not good for everything, but I'm using it where I solder feeders. It's some kind of polyester in solvent.  Hardens quickly into a solid coating. I've had it on my feeders for about six months - so far, so good. Just an idea - anything to keep friends from using suitcases.

Don

[C855B]

... Another thought that I'm trying on my current layout is liquid electrical tape. Not good for everything, but I'm using it where I solder feeders. It's some kind of polyester in solvent.  Hardens quickly into a solid coating. I've had it on my feeders for about six months - so far, so good. Just an idea - anything to keep friends from using suitcases.

After fifteen years of occasional use, I don't recommend the liquid tape. It has problems with "cold flow", where any pressure on the surface will, over time, push the material out of the way and create a bare spot at the contact point. Think of the wire joint being pulled against a screw, or another wire. Works very poorly when you have joints bunched together.

[woodone]

Heat shrink can be used. I cut my bus line in to, then twist the two bus lines together with my feeder wire- solder then slip on a piece of heat shrink and  it's DONE!

[Carolina Northern]

After fifteen years of occasional use, I don't recommend the liquid tape. It has problems with "cold flow", where any pressure on the surface will, over time, push the material out of the way and create a bare spot at the contact point. Think of the wire joint being pulled against a screw, or another wire. Works very poorly when you have joints bunched together.

Hmmm, I may have to reevaluate. I haven't seen this yet (your post made me crawl under and try several joints). As I said, it's only been in place around six months.

I respect your experience and will have to keep an eye on this, adding tape as necessary.

I'll withdraw my recommendation.

Don

[C855B]

Yeah, liquid tape used to be a "specialty" item with a limited distribution. (I used it primarily in communications installations, and discovered the cold flow problem pretty early.) When I started seeing it in Home Depot and other D-I-Y retailers, my exact thought was "This is not good." I envisioned, probably correctly, that some hack somewhere was going to think it was as billed, a "more convenient" alternative to tape, do 110V house wiring connections with it alone and then stuff it all into a switch box, the mother of blind pressure points on connections. Yikes.

Tape and polyolefin heat-shrink tubing also exhibit cold flow, but it takes a lot more pressure and a lot more years for the problem to show.

Liquid tape has its place, and probably your use of it won't be a problem. For isolated connection points where the main issue is simply prevention of accidental casual contact, it ought to do the job. But if you're bundling wires into cable runs, even just as pairs, it has failure potential.

[Carolina Northern]

I've had heat shrink slip, but always attributed it to my fault - using one size too big.

I've always been skeptical about any "easier" ways like liquid solder - won't touch the stuff. This just seemed like a solution for under the table.

My bus lines are 12 gauge solid stripped from house wiring. Separated about an inch and run through holes in the benchwork, just larger than the wire. I strip the bus about a half inch, strip the feeder, and wrap any excess feeder around the insulated portion of the bus up the the stripped wires, wrap them tight and solder. Then go back and put on the tape. If I have any rough edges, I put on another coat after it dries good.

Right now, I think I'll keep using it until gone, but keep an eye on it and wrap it with tape as needed. Once it's gone, back to old style tape.

Don

[mmyers]

I use shrink tube on my modules but can't say I've ever insulated the solder connections on a home layout. I just keep the bus wires apart and fixed to the underside  of the layout. Feeders are soldered to the bus. Air is my insulation.

That is good tape, though. Always cut it. Resist the urge to stretch and tear the tape. It will shrink up over time.

Martin Myers