What do you use to keep your wires in place?

With all of the Drakon bashing going around I'm curious what other people use to hold their wires down. There are plenty of obvious examples out there of what not to do and plenty of pictures of some really nice looking mods but very few threads with the details of the hows and whys which the more inexperienced could use.

Personally I don't use hot glue anywhere but as a dab or three to keep a PCB in place if I can't secure it more strongly via soldering or screws (such as internal VGA mods for the Dreamcast). Wires get bundled with heat shrink tubing and if necessary held down with a small amount of electrical tape (of which I'm worried of the long term consequences of). I've been wondering how useful rubber cement might be but my experiments are inconclusive.

 

I usually just make my solder connections oversized to hold wires for stuff that will be mostly stationary and add electrical tape for stuff that moves. If tape isn't enough and I never plan to take the wires off again then I'll superglue them down in various places. Zip ties and duct tape work too.

 

For tape I use Kapton tape as its anti static, heat resistant and sticks to PCB's and plastic very well.. Also extremely cheap!

It's usually what you find in most consumer electronics actually.

 

For mods that use alot of kynar (PS2), i use very little hot glue as possible when routing wires.

 

I personally use super glue.

 

I took upon this method too but its not coming out so well, i think its the type of coating my kynar wire has. I noticed theres a rubbery type of kynar and another one being more of a solid type.

I got the solid type (UL1423 Rated),

 

I use hot glue in moderated amount. Mostly to hold small parts on PCBs and secur small trace repair wires.

It is much safer and stronger than tape and unlike other glues, it can be removed extremely easily simply by adding a little alcohol on it.
The alcohol chemically reacts with the hot glue and make it brittle and it comes right off whatever it was on.

 

The most I use to hold the wires is electrical tape or equivalent, the hot glue is the last resource and I try to never use it to hold cables on the pcb.

 

I usually route wires through components or gently press adjacent components together to hold wires in place. If I have long wires that run across the board then I use little dabs of hot glue wherever the wires make an angle.

 

The main point of tacking wires is to prevent loose loops which make it more likely to accidentally yank wires which will damage solder and connections.

Tape is good mostly if you do temporary/proto installs that you likely will have to mess with again. But for anything that you want permanent, you are better off with hot glue.

One exemple of good hot glue use is if you lift a pin from a chip and solder a wire on the lifted pin. This pin becomes very vulnerable so I will drop a glob of hot glue right on the lifted pin so it will not bend in case you accidentally tug the wire.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with hot glue, as long as it's used in moderation. So long as you're not encasing the entire board in the stuff, it's not a big deal. Electrical tape is junk and degrades over time. It absolutely should not be used in permanent install.

 

i usually just try to wedge it in somewhere if there's is somewhere that will keep it secure,but if its a really small point or an area i know would be damaged easily with too much resoldeing i just put a little spot of hot glue over the "delicate" area just to be safe "once ive 100% verfied its all soldered good"

but that being said i do use electrical tape if its more for aesthetic purposes, or just to keep them out of my way whilst im still working on it

 

I've used glue a lot in the past but very very minimal amounts, not melting entire sticks on like Drakon Recently I've been more of a fan of wires that bend and stay in place, if you mess them up you have to throw them out and do a new wire but if you get them right they look wonderful and are a lot easier to keep in place than normal wire! I've also used the kind of clothy medical tape which I like because it comes off of PCB very easily, but it can leave some residue. Nothing a little isopropyl won't take off though.

 

Plan ahead, take your time and a little of super glue goes a long way.

 

Plan ahead, take your time and a little of super glue goes a long way.

 

Jinn, when you do installs like that. Do you "superglue" wires one at a time or all at once when they are all soldered?

 

Superglue? Nooooo please XD

 

Marmite

 

With the tears of my enemys

 

I solder all the wires first then route them and apply a small of super glue. You can use electrical tape under the wires or some wax paper, after the glue dries you remove the wax paper since it won't stick and no need to worry about the wires being glued to the board.