Personal Rig Update 2012 Part 6 - Cable Sleeving Showcase & Guide Linus Tech Tips
Personal Rig Update 2012 Part 6 - Cable Sleeving Showcase & Guide Linus Tech Tips
2012-02-23
one of the most time-consuming parts of
the new build can be sleeping and it's
particularly time consuming if your cats
constantly getting in the way because
they love they love this stuff see very
bothersome so let's have a look at some
of the supplies needed some of the
decisions that I had to make with
respect to how I want to take it down to
how I want to go about this right now
there's sort of two main ways to sleeve
cables there's this way which is you do
heat shrink your zip tie at the end and
then you have the wires exposed at the
end and then the other way that's sort
of the more enthusiasts guys are going
about this is pretty in fashion these
days is the individually sleeved wires
which is both a lot of work but both a
lot of work and a lot of good looks so
you just got to decide whether you want
to do that you can buy these pre done
extensions but extensions have a have
some ill effects such as
you lose a little bit of efficiency in
their connectors and you lose a little
bit of efficiency in the longer cables
so and then also okay like the last nail
effect is that now your cable is longer
so you have the original cable which
looks something like this
here we go the original cable which
looks something like this which is now
even longer so you have to bunch up that
extra somewhere so it becomes a little
bit harder to hide so those are sort of
the pros and cons of using these they
look good though they're not a lot of
work and they're not very expensive
compared to doing it yourself I decided
just because I'm lazy and I had this
particular sleeving lying around and the
matching heat shrink tubing so sleeving
heat shrink tubing scissors tape marker
razor blade something to mark the
lengths for your heat shrink ATX so this
is for 24 pins here I'm just going to
see if I can get focus you guys can see
what this tool looks like 24 pins six
pins and eight pins and then this guy is
four molexes female and male
on the two respective sides and you can
see I can go away okay um so the route I
decided to go is actually slightly
different I have some challenges that
I'm probably going to face here because
one of them is that I have more than 24
pins on the side of the power supply and
24 pins here so I haven't stripped the
sleeving off of it yet I don't know
exactly what they're doing but you can
see that some of these have here like
this one for example have two pins going
into one motherboard pin so I'm going to
have to figure out where exactly they're
coming from because what I'm going to be
doing because I'm not quite willing to
put the work in for individually sleeved
but I don't I don't like having the
exposed bits at the end is I'm using a
slightly thicker sleeving and I am doing
two wires per cable sleeve so right now
you can see I've got my modular here we
go my modular 6 + - where's the - sorry
I can hardly reach with my stress chest
tripod on here
so I've got my modular 6 + 2 and I've
done two wires focus please
yep so two wires per sleeve which means
that even if I bend it like this you
can't see much of the actual wire at all
even if the wire color is yellow so you
have in this all that way so you can
only see about that much of it but what
I'll probably do when I'm routing the
cables out of the video card itself so
I'll have it going in like this so I'll
have a nice loose curve on it so that
you can't really see it too much so this
guide will be more of a lazy man's way
of doing it if you want the OCD way to
do this and I mean OCD and like the
kindest most respectful possible sense
because it really does get fantastic
results you should check out this thread
on hard forum and there we go one five
nine nine nine six five and this is by
Kay a master and he basically shows you
guys how to do it sort of by the book
and end up with the best possible
results my way is going to be fairly
straightforward compared to that so
let's get started actually one more side
note before we get started sleeping of
course isn't only useful for the cables
on your power supply
in this case these are some custom
fabricated things that I did so these
are just extension cables for one fan
power connector to dual fan power
connectors and I did some sort of messy
soldering and taping and isolating or
insulating rather isolating insulating
here and then I can take the whole thing
zip tie it heat shrink it and then it
sort of hides it and makes it not look
quite as ugly so that's one thing you
can use it for other cables as well so
I'm haven't decided how I'm going to go
about this but what I'm probably going
to do is butcher these four adapters so
I have four of these molex to Duggal
SATA with black cable adapters I'm going
to hack them apart and then I'm going to
use these to wire up my drives on the
back of the motherboard tray when I'm
done here just because I'm having a heck
of a time tracking down the any kind of
part number that I can use to fabricate
these myself so I'm just going to say
that tack it up a game so yeah so we're
going to do the eight pin connector so
this is the motherboard connector CPU
and go step-by-step here on that one
step one is to remove the existing
sleeving you can use either razor blade
or scissors for this depending on how
how tightly how tightly packed the wires
are in there so you want to be careful
if you're using a razor blade not to
accidentally cut any of the wires
because remaking these cables is a heck
of a lot more work than sleeping them
which is already more work than most
people are willing to put into their pcs
and you just want to double-check make
sure you didn't cut anything it's good
this is just glue residue left over from
the adhesive heat shrink that was used
on this cable before so be careful when
you're cutting up the existing braided
sleeving because if you cut it if you
cross cut it then what you'll do is
you'll make a real mess like if you cut
across an area that you've already cut
because little tiny bits of this plastic
will get all over the place and maybe
just just a horrifying mess and if
you're the kind of person who cleans
your own house as opposed to has your
mom doing it for you then that will be
an issue that'll be a factor
believe me I know the demographics of my
YouTube channel I know most of you are
young although some of you aren't to
know that it's 96% nail who watched this
channel go figure right guys so I'm just
called removed this other end up for
this next part an optional step would be
numbering the pins before you start
taking them out but in a lot of cases it
doesn't even really matter because as
long as you follow a schematic for
whatever connector you happen to be
putting back together then yeah it
doesn't really make a difference as long
as the voltages are right so here we go
actually although although sharing that
in mind on the 24 pin I'm probably going
to go ahead and number them especially
for the ones where there are two wires
going into one connector so for some
reason XFX are mostly sonic rather has
seen fit to do it that way so I'm going
to go ahead and stick with their way
just for peace of mind so there you go
and then the next thing we do here is we
use this tool use this tool and not any
other tool don't use the one that looks
like this it's round but has like two
prongs on the end because you're
probably pretty much wasting your time
although I'm not going to do a separate
guide I will show you guys how the molex
removal tool or like the peripheral
removal tool works you put this in here
there's different sides for female and
male and then what you're doing is I'm
going to see if I get the camera focus
yep there you go see you are compressing
these two pins on either side and don't
beat sleeving Kat you're compressing
these two pins on either side so that
what happens is once you cover them you
can pull them out of the housing right
here so you just go like that yeah and
then you pull out the wire I can't
really do it because the sleeping's in
the way but you guys catch my drift so
this one works much the same way except
that these are much more finicky
problematic connector so you got to make
sure that when you're looking at the
safety latch these are sort of side to
side the pins go in the sides this way
not like sides this way because that's
where the little the little pins are and
then just gotta get it
just right there we go make sure you're
down the outside okay and then what I do
is I usually use my palm to apply some
pressure to the to this in here making
sure not to apply any sideways pressure
because these pins can break off so I'm
applying pressure here then I take the
cable the wire I apply pressure in
towards the the removal tool then I give
it a little bit of a wiggle to loosen
the pins make sure that they're both
caught and then pull out so you go tools
extracted and you guys can see here now
the little tiny pins that it's very
important I want to see if I get that
twisted for you so you can see the
little tiny pins on either side that
it's important not to ruin and you never
want to force it when you're doing this
guy's because if you force it what can
happen is you can accidentally bend the
pins completely are these little little
clips the little hooks completely
backwards and if you do that then you
basically have to cut this off by some
of these pins crimp it on Fablab created
the fabricate a completely new connector
so try not to do that it's a real it's a
real bear to deal with so there you go
it takes about that long once you have
some practice and then the next step for
the next step I take whatever cables I'm
going to be running through this leaving
so I've now removed all of the ends here
and then I just put a little bit of tape
on them like painters green tape is what
I'm using right now just because it
comes off really easily so this just
keeps it from catching when I run it
through the sleeving that I'm going to
be running it through so if you have a
whole group of wires that you're doing
then you'll obviously run those through
if you're doing individual wires and
you'll obviously be doing these one at a
time but I'm doing two wires at a time
so you just kind of go like this until
you get to the other end where I haven't
removed the connector because I don't
really need you personally I find it
kind of tricky to measure these out
before I put them on so I just go to the
end cut them you'll need oh that was one
of the things
didn't mention before you'll need a
lighter or I use a little torch to keep
the ends from fraying so you just give
it a little a little bit of heat a lot
of time you don't want them to start
melting too bad but just enough to keep
them from completely coming apart so now
I have put this leaving on and sizing it
is a little bit tricky so for the heat
shrink what you want to do is you take
your your mark whatever it happens to be
in my case it's a Q connector and then
you line it up make a little mark use a
pair of sharp scissors to cut right on
the mark there are ways to do this more
accurately than what I'm doing but like
I said mine is the quick and dirty guide
and then you put that on there making
sure that you don't accidentally bend
back any of the strands while you're
doing this because you'll unbraid it and
make a mess so go ahead put that down to
the end now lots of different ways to
terminate these so what I used to
usually do was I'd use a bigger heat
train can I put a zip tie under it to
make sure that it wouldn't move but that
was usually when I was trying to fit the
this leaving really really tight and
have it be as compressed as possible
because the more here so the more tight
it is the more opaque it is and the more
loose it is the more you can see through
it you guys see me figure so I was
usually trying to go for that whereas
I'm using a higher-quality braided
sleeving this time so what I'm going to
be doing is going for a more loose fit
so you guys can see my connector that
I'm already finished so this guy right
here and at the power supply ends I'm
not really as worried about how tidy it
is so I'm leaving a little bit of extra
extra braided sleeving outside of the
heat shrink and what that means is that
even if the heat shrink accidentally
moves a little bit it won't actually
come out completely which is very very
pretty much impossible to fix whereas on
the other end I've gone for the pretty
tidy approach ok so where was I here
right so you want to get it kind of
almost to the end there and then yeah I
guess you can pretty much you trick it
out so I use a torch for this it's
better to use
gun with a like a fairly low setting but
you just kind of give it heat
try not to melt the connector or
especially try not to melt the braided
sleeving
because that's really really bad then
you basically just wasted that piece
because it'll be too short for anything
else so once that's done you go ahead
make sure the orientation of the wires
within the sleeving stays correct okay
and then you come back to the other end
here and what I usually do is sort of
approximately mark I can feel where the
pin ends and it's going to be a little
bit under there then I just kind of burn
through it get the get the pins out
take off my masking tape just kind of
cut that off there like I said it's
totally the lazy way and not doing it by
the book but I showed you guys how to do
it by the book as well basically follow
that guide by someone more skilled and
more patient than me and then what I do
is I let the I loosen up the cables
leaving a little bit just because I'm
not going for like a super tight fit I
just don't want it to move and then that
gives me some idea of where I stand so
now I can see that I have to cut away
just a tiny bit more and make sure these
two wires are are the same here oh okay
that's interesting actually I might not
need to kind of a much more at all I
wanted to be too tight yeah just a
little bit more so what I'll do is I'll
quickly burn it and then while it's
still hot just so that I don't end up
with like globs at the end burn it push
it just to get rid of a little bit more
I don't like cutting it with the
scissors at this point because if you
cut a little bit too much then what will
happen is you will be stuck
sorry help me just cut that bit off
you'll be stuck because you'll then have
to burn it a little bit and then once
you burn it a little bit after you've
cut it a bit too much then you can end
up with like you know a big mess of like
globby bits at the end which you then
have to cut off and then all of a sudden
you've gone too far and that's
Natick so just kind of reminisce back
beyond doing this getting sure not to
burn away the this the jacket on the
wires much mush mush okay
should be good okay so now what we do is
haha and this is critical this is a very
important step make sure you put on your
other piece of heat shrink rip rap mark
and cut okay so I put that on because if
you forget to do this and you reattach
the connector then you have to take them
off again and that sucks
so once you've put on your heat shrink
check your cat out of the way and then
you find the connector which I seem to
have misplaced you check either another
connector you check a schematic online
or you label them in the first place so
here I've got my two CPU connectors so
it looks like black ones go at the top
which ones are these so I'm doing these
two correspond pretty much directly so
I'm going to take this and I'm going to
turn it around and I'm going to go okay
well then these ones go right up out
here making sure the orientation of the
wires is correct before I try to put
them in clip and clip and then I make
sure my heat shrink tubing completely
covers this leaving this time make sure
it's not too loose or too tight now and
then I go ahead give the OL heat really
careful with the heat if you guys are
using an open flame for this part
because it's very easy to accidentally
melt this and then it'll start to fray
and then you made a real mess of
everything
so there you go I have now sleeved my
two wires that is pretty much how to do
cables leaving out know if I'm missing
anything in particular so thank you for
checking out my little guide and I'm
sorry
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