Started sleeving my power supply cables tonight!

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: shady06
yeah, all the people at my frys are idiots. but i'm goin to look right now (again)

Most of the sales dorks at the Fry's near me are idiots also. I actually found one guy in the computer department who knows what he's talking about though.

 

[JulesMaximus]

One word of advice to anyone thinking of sleeving their power supply connectors: Make sure you know which wires go where when you put the connectors back on!!! The only two you can really mess up (that I noticed anyway) are the two black center wires on the molex connector.

 

[Corporate Thug]

of course my craptacular frys didnt have any flexopet

 

[mechBgon]

The two black center wires are both ground wires, so they're interchangeable

I sleeved my Antec TruePower 430 with double-layered 1/4" on almost all of the leads last night. I am seriously in debt to MDay for his must-read sleeving guide! Read and follow the instructions about flaring the end of the sleeving by sliding something inside, then melting the strands just until the end V's melt together (I hovered mine about 1mm away from a heavy-duty soldering iron, worked great). After this, the stuff resists fraying in the most excellent way, plus the end is flared so it's a snap to get it started.

Aside from that, I grabbed a roll of masking tape and simply wrapped those snaggy metal pins with it.

The double-sleeving was a pretty time-consuming process but the end result is very nice-looking. I'm afraid I don't have a ton of (good) photos of the completed project, but here's a photo of the taped-up pins that shows one double-sleeved section: link

And here's the best photo I have of the whole thing: link 2 I didn't have the big sleeving to fit the ATX cable, so it's single-sleeved, and the six-wire legacy cable is single-sleeved because I got very tired and simply didn't notice that I'd only put one layer on

And if anyone wants to tell me how the heck to get the pins out of the 4-pin ATX12V Pentium4 power plug, I would greatly appreciate that!

 

[Corporate Thug]

mechBgon. do u sleeve PSU for a living?

i want to do mine but i'm kinda worried it'll turn out crappy

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: shady06
mechBgon. do u sleeve PSU for a living?

i want to do mine but i'm kinda worried it'll turn out crappy

No, that was my first one, and it took me (get this) from about 10PM to 4AM I better not quit the day job, eh? Believe me, I was worried how it would come out, too!

Here's my advice: buy tons of sleeving and tons of heatshrink tubing, it's not like it's expensive. I bought two 1-foot sections of heatshrink and I ran out. Review MDay's guide and get the hang of that melting-flaring trick. Remove the pins from the 3-pin plugs on your fans and it's a snap to get their wires through the 1/8" stuff (I gave up trying to get the whole connector through ).

I'm still wondering if UV-reactive sleeving under black sleeving would look good Someone want to try that?

 

[fredtam]

Looks good mechBgon.

I just thought of a question. My Antec430 came with black molex connectors which I like very much. I'm building a system for a friend next week and thought about making that my first try at sleeving. I don't know what PSU he will go with but if its not the one I have does anybody know where I can get the black molex connectors offhand?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: fredtam
Looks good mechBgon.

I just thought of a question. My Antec430 came with black molex connectors which I like very much. I'm building a system for a friend next week and thought about making that my first try at sleeving. I don't know what PSU he will go with but if its not the one I have does anybody know where I can get the black molex connectors offhand?

Where did you get your 430? I've seen a retail-boxed 330 from mwave.com that came with the black ones and it looked awesome :Q I tried looking at Molex's site to get a part number so I could hunt them down, but was unable to locate the PC-style plugs in any color whatsoever.

What about vinyl dye as an alternative?

 

[fredtam]

I got it about a month and a half ago from from Knoledge Micro. Yeah the dye will probably work but it would be so much easier if I could find those little things

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The two black center wires are both ground wires, so they're interchangeable

I sleeved my Antec TruePower 430 with double-layered 1/4" on almost all of the leads last night. I am seriously in debt to MDay for his must-read sleeving guide! Read and follow the instructions about flaring the end of the sleeving by sliding something inside, then melting the strands just until the end V's melt together (I hovered mine about 1mm away from a heavy-duty soldering iron, worked great). After this, the stuff resists fraying in the most excellent way, plus the end is flared so it's a snap to get it started.

Aside from that, I grabbed a roll of masking tape and simply wrapped those snaggy metal pins with it.

The double-sleeving was a pretty time-consuming process but the end result is very nice-looking. I'm afraid I don't have a ton of (good) photos of the completed project, but here's a photo of the taped-up pins that shows one double-sleeved section: link

And here's the best photo I have of the whole thing: link 2 I didn't have the big sleeving to fit the ATX cable, so it's single-sleeved, and the six-wire legacy cable is single-sleeved because I got very tired and simply didn't notice that I'd only put one layer on

And if anyone wants to tell me how the heck to get the pins out of the 4-pin ATX12V Pentium4 power plug, I would greatly appreciate that!

LOL, I was wondering about the black wires. That figures, I went through all the trouble to make sure the right ones went back in the same slot for nothing. Oh well.

It isn't hard to do the sleeving it is just time consuming.

That's an excellent idea about flaring the sleeving and melting it. I tried melting with nothing in there and it shrunk the opening. Go figure. I probably would have figured something similar out eventually.

Buy plenty of heat shrink. You will use more than you think you will need.

 

[fredtam]

mechBgon,

I looked for the molex site you spoke of but could not find it in English. No I'm not qualified to use Google. I did get a number off the molex if it helps.

WST
P4-A10202
TUV

 

[mechBgon]

It's www.molex.com, the one I was searching. I'll give it a try with that longer number and see what happens.


search
search search
search



They've got stuff that's reminiscent of them, but I can't find one that's an exact match.

 

[fredtam]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
It's www.molex.com, the one I was searching. I'll give it a try with that longer number and see what happens.


search
search search
search



They've got stuff that's reminiscent of them, but I can't find one that's an exact match.

Yeah I'm a dumba$$. I get so use to searching that I don't even think about entering the company name.

 

[JulesMaximus]

New pic

New pic with the new side panel. I plan on finishing up the sleeving tomorrow.

BTW-Temps went up a bit without the window fan. I may have to cut a hole in this sucker...not sure yet. It is nice and quiet but a few degrees warmer. Case temps at 34C, CPU around 40C after some hardcore gaming.