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Heat-shrink

Heat-shrink is a soft tubing which reduces its original diameter when it's exposed to heat.

The essential key to cable sleeving magic!

In combination with MDPC-X cable sleeving, you will use transparent heat-shrink to fully control the process of melting the sleeve's end on OR to another object, as you can see in our sleeving guide. This magic trick opens endless new possibilities!

Advantages of melting cable sleeve ends

  • Extremely robust bond between MDPC-X cable sleeve and connectors, terminals, wire (ends), cable (ends), tubing (ends) etc., which prevents any sliding of the sleeving on the object.
  • Maximum kink protection on electrical connections.
  • Beautiful and minimalistic sleeve to object transitions.
  • In product-design situations where the sleeve is longer than the end of an object, you can fully close the sleeve by melting the sleeve end. You can then cut and file / sand the melted sleeving end for a perfect end section for the object.

Technical info about our heat-shrink: No compromise.

  • Among multiple professionals, our heat-shrink has the reputation of being "the best they ever used".
  • No thick walls, no double-wall, no glossy surface, no glue, no writings on the surface, no compromise.
  • Only high shrink ratios of 4:1 and 3:1
  • At ~95°C the heat-shrink will start to shrink.
  • It can be exposed 24/7 to temperatures of up to 160°C.
  • Without melting or breaking effects, extreme temperatures of 240°C can be applied for a couple of minutes.
  • Water in contact with our heat-shrink is not a problem because of the low ~0.25% water absorption property.
  • 20KV per mm dielectric strength make our heat-shrink tubing a high class insulation solution.
  • Oils, chemicals or cleaning agents have no structural effect on our heat-shrink.

What else can I do with heat-shrink?

  • It' used to cover the transition of the sleeve-end to your object
  • It's typically used to cover un-insulated sections of bare electrical wire (or wire to crimp terminal transitions).
  • It's often used to make a connector to cable (or tubing) transition more robust by being a kink protection.
  • In a connector to cable (or tubing) transition it also protects this area against water infiltration.

How to shrink the heat-shrink?

Use a heat-gun (no hair dryer!), lighter, butane torch or similar. High temperatures (200-300°C) are very efficient.
For lighters / torches, this is the best technique to work with heat shrink:

  1. Repetitively move the shrink sideways through (into and out) the lower part of the flame. (Why? Above or at the top of a flame could generate soot on the shrink)
  2. Rotate the heat-shrink to heat it up evenly on all sides.
  3. Repetitively have a pause of 2-5 seconds after you applied heat to the heat-shrink for ~5 seconds. This prevents breaking / burning of the shrink.
  4. When the shrinking process is completed, let it cool down before you move, bend or twist anything.
  5. If you used this technique to also melt the sleeving underneath the heat-shrink, you can now cut off the shrink tube with a scissor or sharp knife.
  6. If you ever need to soften the heat-shrinks later on, just apply heat again.

"Over-expanding" / Increasing the diameter.

To increase ("over-expand") the original diameter of short heat-shrink pieces to a higher diameter (the minimum diameter will stay the same!), do the following:

  1. Insert the tips of a straight long nosed plier into the heat-shrink.
  2. Open the tips of the plier / spread them away from each other. This will stretch / over-expand the heat-shrink from the inside.
  3. Rotate the heat-shrink to distribute the stretch forces over different parts of the surface. This will avoid braking of the heat-shrink during the stretching or shrinking process.