Electrical tape as cheapo cable sleeving?

Ronty

Ronty

Ronty

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17 Aug 2005
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Would there be any issues in doing this?

Seeing as its used for all sorts of mains-related jobs I think it'd be fine, temperature wise it shouldn't matter either, was just after a second opinion.

I dont like seeing the multicoloured unbraided cables through the window in my case, thought this could be a quick fix!

Thanks
 
No issues (apart from in removing it) but it's a *bitch* to do, and doesn't look that good in the end. Having tried it in the distant past, sleeving with proper sleeve + heatshrink is actually easier to do, given a good ATX tool or other wire remover. Honest :).

If you think about it, wrapping a long piece of tape around a wire without it folding, accientally sticking onto something then back onto itself, and making the edges straight, is almost impossible.

If you feel like you MUST sleeve your cables in electrical tape then I'd recommend 'cloth' tape instead. It looks a lot nicer, but is equally annoying to do and to get off. I use cloth tape instead of heatshrink when I don't have the right size and it looks almost as good.
 
It will look crap, you will wish you did it properly! I think you can actually get proper cable binding tape though. Even self amalgamating tape would look better,
 
Hmm, I thought it might leave the wires in a state, but the PSU is nothing special so I'm not too bothered about that.

I tried it earlier on a 4 pin ATX extension I bought and it didn't look too bad, but then that was a short run of straight cable.

Might give it a bash anyway, and report back with the mess I make
 
You could also try non adhesive electrical tape to wrap the cables. We used to use this sort of stuff to wrap our wiring harnesses at work. It can be relatively easily removed and leaves no residue. It clings quite well to the cables as they are made of PVC. We used to use heat from a butchered soldering iron to seal the end.

Cloth tape also looks pretty good but can be quite tricky to roll neatly onto wires.

Plain insulation tape looks pretty poor in my opinion.

With both methods you'll tend to find that the wiring becomes quite rigid.

There's also stuff like zipped sleeving which will work quite well if you can find it.

In all methods you'll find the the wiring will be visible coming out of the connectors, unless you tape right up to the connector or fit rubber boots.
 
I wouldn't use black tape as it would hard to get a uniform look, and I use it at work all the time!
Have you considered getting some heat-shrink sleeving? It would look far better and would protect your cables as well. You can't remove it after of course!
 
blitzyuk said:
Why can't you remove heat shrink sleeving? I thought you could just cut it like you would any other sleeving.
Click to expand...

Depends. Standard heatshrink you can, easily enough. Just need a knife.
You can get adhesive lined, which doesn't come off cleanly and easily.
 
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