FLEXO sleeving help

[Naruto]

I have an antec smartpower psu 300W. I plan to sleeve the whole comp as well. What sizes should I get? I plan to sleeve everything, all the molex connectors, main mobo atx connector, atx 12v connector, 3 pin fan connectors, and finally the power switch, hdd led, restart, speaker, etc... connectors. To do this job, will 5 feet of 1/2" and 5 feet of 1/4" do?

 

[BG4533]

The 1/2" sleeving will be oversized for almost everything except the big ATX connector, but you could use it. To do my Truepower 430 I believe I used 10ft 1/4" sleeving for all the 4 pin connectors and 5ft 1/8" sleeving for the smaller things.

Brian

 

[fredtam]

Here is a how to guide. Also Frozencpu has a guide. They also sell kits for both power supply and fan sleeving which may give you an idea of sizes and lengths you need. Here is a pdf. of a maximumPC article that recommends sizes.

 

[Mday]

whoa. you plan on doing your mobo wires too? good luck...

1/4" for the 4-wire ones, even the 6 wire if you have it.
1/2" to 3/4" for the 20-24 wire atx connector
1/8" for 2 wired ones.

here's my recommendation for cutting the flexo pet sleeves: cut it with SHARP scissors, if you dont have sharp ones, buy new ones. then insert something like a screw driver bit or something wide and then use a soldering iron to seal the individual V shaped points. if you really KNOW how to use a hot knife, and have one do so. using an open flame or other methods can cause all the V shaped points to be sealed together. this causes problems since you cant open it back up. i'll see if i can do some pix of this method.

use heatshrink wrap to seal the ends of the sleeving. the higher the shrink ratio the better. www.svc.com has good prices on the sleeving for the lengths you get (ie, to match their prices per foot, you may have to get 100' elsewhere) and 3:1 ratio heatshink tubing. 2:1 is what you would find elsewhere. 3:1 means a heatshrink tubing piece with 3/8" diameter will shrink to 1/8" after heat is applied. apply the heat with a blow dryer (heat required, so if your BD has a cool mode, dont use that) and careful not to blow on the flexo pet sleeves themselves, they will warp.

www.svc.com sells in 5' lengths, so get 10' of the 1/4 and 1/8 just in case.

DO NOT PUT OPEN FLAME TO ANYTHING. the wires, heatshrink tubing and the flexo pet MAY NOT be flame retardent. just put the stuff near it, not in the flame.

--

http://www.mdayx.com/articles/sleeving/sleeving.htm

there are some pix on the bottom to show you now to cut them.

 

[Naruto]

How do I sleeve that big ATX mobo power connector? For example if I took out all those power wires and put it back in the wrong order, I can only dread of what might happen. Also would using the blowdryer be good enough for the heatshrink?

 

[BG4533]

I think most people just skip the ATX plug for that reason. You have a couple options. You can remove all the wires and attempt to put them back in the right order, this is difficult and not good if you screw up. Second, you could buy Sleeving big enough to fit over the connector, 1" or even larger might be necessary. The easiest way is probably to pick up some of that Flexo wrap that you just wrap around the wires.

As for the blowdryer, it would have to be one extremely hot blow dryer. Just use a lighter, just remember to try to keep it out of the direct flame and move it around and you will be fine. Also remember to not touch the HS tubing after you shrink it, it gets extremely hot.

Brian