I use small diameter braided sleeving (Ca 1.5mm) for covering wiring in matrix-boarded prototypes. It works fine except for the fact that the cut ends invariably fray, the board ends up with feathery 'skirts' wherever there is an end. What's the recommended / standard approach for preventing this and keeping things neat?
Heat shrink tubing over the ends.
Why braiding? Why not teflon insulated wire or teflon tubing? It's not as crush resistant but it handles soldering iron bumps well.
Nylon braided sleeving, by any chance?
If so, you might try the same trick that works fairly well to keep nylon rope from unravelling. Flame it briefly and melt the ends of the strands... or cut the end and press it against a hot surface, to the same effect. [The risk of these is that you might melt shut the end of the sleeving, of course.]
Or, try a dab of nail polish.
Touch the ends with an old soldering iron tip.Perfect. So long as it's nylon of course.
On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 13:23:02 +0800, Bruce Varley Gave us:
I used to cut the end cleanly at the time I made it, then carefully apply a bead of solder to them like a pant cuff. It requires a high manual dexterity though, and is not able to be done on.
Oh wait.... you are not talking about shielding, you are referring to protective rayon or the like.
The same technique can be applied, but you have to use the bare solder tip and meld together the ends, and if you have it expanded to far it is difficult.
The other (another) method is to turn a bit of it back in on itself and fold the crease so it stays and be careful not to catch it when you put the sleeve into place.
You can also add heat shrink to the end, but you have to shrink it very carefully or you will damage (melt) the braid.
The amount of weave matters too... and there are cloth varieties as well. The amazon "description" area speaks about a hot knife to cut it which melds the frayed ends at the time of the cutting operation.
If you have a hot-air rework station ($99 for a basic one from Sparkfun!) it works _miles_ better than matches or lighters for this. I was just sealing some rope ends on a hobby project just this morning, and gloating over this.
Don't use braid? What's wrong with pvc sleeve?
NT
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