(no subject)

[nonethefewer]

Question!

I have an AC device.  The cord snapped.  I hear tell that I can:

* Strip the insulation.
* Get some shrink tubing meow meow what and slide it on, cord-side.
* Twist the two wire ends together.
* Slide that tubing over, and use heat or summat to seal it all together.

Two questions:

1) Can I use duct tape instead?  Wrap it around the middle to keep the wires separate, then around the whole thing?
2) It's not two wires, so much as two bundles of teensy wire things.  Let's pretend I don't speak hardware, and that this extends to electrical work - what would be the easiest way to reconnect these?

Comments

[roadriverrail.livejournal.com]

I guess you could use duct tape in a pinch, but I'd be very careful. Basically, under the directions you've just proposed, you're not really bonding the wire back together...you're just twisting it back together. So, the only thing between your patched cord and a spark is your heat shrink/tape and its ability to cover the wrapped wire and to hold it together. And that can be pretty serious, because if the wires come apart enough to make a spark, you could have a house fire on your hands.

So, if you do this with duct tape, please be careful and don't consider it a long-term fix. There are rolls of electrician's tape that are dirt cheap (like duct tape cheap) that you could use for this and that you can wrap really really tight. They're a bit stretchy, so they would hold something like this together better. I still wouldn't leave the thing plugged in.

It sounds like it's braided wire rather than solid wire. Almost every plug-in device is this way because it makes the cord flexible. If you're going to wrap the wires back together, I would highly suggest that you take each end and twist it a little on its own (kinda like if you were twisting a ponytail into a bun) to smooth it out, then wrap the ends to each other. You don't want stray bits that might make a spark.

Just my mildly informed opinion.

[trista.livejournal.com]

You could bring it here and Brad could fix it in 30 seconds, he tells me. Otherwise, he says, electrical tape is the way to go.

This message translated by The trista as we are in my room and I'm already signed in. I has teh mad admin assistant skillz still. Woo.

[siderea]

How did that aphorism go? *googles* "The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea."

Re 1) No, you can't. If you do, you're likely to burn down your house. Don't do that. Use the specialty tools and materials for electricity if you must do it. But honestly, wouldn't you rather a nice bonded/licensed professional do that for you?

I have someone on my flist who lost his house, everything in it, and one of his dogs to a short in an electric fan.

[pir.livejournal.com]

Do NOT just twist wires together.

If you get a bad connection at any point (even if it's fine to start with any movement can cause problems) you start to get high resistance points or even small sparks. This means heat, which means melting insulation, hot things and burning your house down.

If you don't speak hardware get someone who does to fix it. Really. Don't fuck around with the things that may kill you and everyone else in your house.

[mightywombat.livejournal.com]

The two bumdles of teensy wire-things are referred to generally as "stranded wire". Stranded wire is used in AC device powere cords because it is both more flexible than solid wire, and it can carry more current than solid wire without heating up too much (more surface area, dontchaknow). You can repair this wire in any number of ways, from true ghetto engineering (twist together, wrap with any available tape) to really for real proper fixing (with solder and heat shrink tubing and pretty and nice and aww).

So, maybe the easiest thing to do is to tell you that as long as the two wires are twisted together, and you have prevented the bare ends from ever ever EVER coming in contact with one another by wrapping an insulator around the ends, then you will have mended the wire.

Duct tape is acceptable, I think. Another option is a wire nut (ask at any hardware store - they're cheap) which you screw down onto the ends you have twisted together to keep them together. Then you would proceed to wrap with insulating material. Wrap each individual bundle of wire things first to ensure they are isolated from one another, then wrap the lot.

One final thing: this all gets more complicated if there is a transformer (power-pack, wall wart, etc) between the break in the wire and the wall. Then you will be dealing with DC power, and there are much differemt rules. If the power cable goes straight from the appliance to the wall then any fix mentioned above should work.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Today's irregular web comic was written with you in mind (http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2350.html)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend electrical tape and wire nuts as mightywombat mentioned above. The problem with duct tape is I don't know if it's a good insulator or not, so it might conduct some electricity. If it conducts electricity possible consequences in order of severity are tripping the circuit breaker / blowing the fuse, burning out the item, or burning down the house.

As for how to go about it, unplug the device and turn it off. On the plug side, feel the rubber around each side of the wire, one wire's rubber will be smooth all the way around, and the other will be ridged. Find the ridged wire on the appliance side too. Ridged must go to ridged - this is the grounded wire and helps prevent you from getting a shock from the device.

Around the break in each wire strip the rubber back by 1-2". Twine the wire/s on the ridged side appliance end with the wires on the ridged side plug end - you want to twine them together so their loose ends are together and make the bottom of a Y, with the top parts of the Y being the wire towards the appliance and the wire towards the plug. Poke the bottom of the Y where they were twined together into a wire nut (a plastic cap that's threaded on the inside with metal threads) and screw it down onto the wires. Repeat for the unridged side appliance end with the unridged side plug end.

Take your electrical tape and put some tape between the unridged and ridged wires so that they're not touching. Then wrap around everything so that no wire shows, so the wire nuts are held on, and so the tape is as flush as possible with the original rubber sheath and the wire nuts.

To test, find an outlet with a GFCI (that little switch/trigger thing) if available, plug fixed device in, do not touch the outlet or the spliced area, and turn the device on, running it for a minute at most. If you trip anything (GFCI, circuit breaker, fuse), turn the device off before unplugging, then reset things. If all seems to go ok, turn it off before unplugging, then carefully touch the spliced area to see if it's hot. If it's hot, wait for it to cool before doing anything further. If it's hot or if you tripped anything undo everything, and see if you can find where the problem is and redo without doing that same thing wrong.

If a fire starts (highly unlikely, but I know you like to be prepared for all possibilities) do NOT use water to put out the fire. If possible, turn off the device and unplug, then use a fire extinguisher or smother with a blanket or other large piece of fabric. If you are unable to put out the fire, or if you feel you yourself are at risk, call 911 and tell them it started as an electrical fire, and turn off the power source (circuit breaker, fuse) if you know how and doing so would not put yourself at risk.

Google search terms: splice strip wire