Wire Sleeving Tutorial or Tips?

I’ve seen a bunch of really nice wiring jobs, including wire sleeves and was wondering if anyone had a tutorial on how they’re done so well?

For instance, ShinJN’s stick has probably -the- cleanest wiring I’ve seen:

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=5890858&postcount=6738

Anyone have any tips?

My main questions are:

  1. Where can I buy the stuff? Is there a certain brand/type that’s best? Can’t find any at my local hardware/electronics store in Canada. Any online retailers?

  2. How do you measure the lengths so perfectly? Anything other than great precision and careful measurements?

  3. Is that tube-shrink on the ends?

  4. How do you create the ‘branches’ or openings for the wires to come out of the middle of the sleeving? Any specific procedure?

These questions don’t necessarily apply only to ShinJN’s wiring job, as there’s tons of beautiful wiring jobs posted as well, but they’re all with the same premise. Ecksnine’s sticks come to mind and he does a great job too, see his thread for more pics.

Thanks in advance for any tips/pointers :smiley: Any other general tips about nice clean wiring are appreciated too!

  1. I’ve never tried it, but here’s where you can get them: http://www.buyheatshrink.com/braidedsleeving/pet-braided-sleeving.htm

  2. no idea

  3. looks like he wrapped electrical tape around the edge. might be wrong. EDIT: OOPS I was so damn wrong

  4. I think the holes are already there.

I always sleeve my PCs. Here’s a great guide http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=202639.

  1. I use http://store.murdermod.com/murderware/sleeving-kits.htm. It’s spendy, but it’s top quality.

  2. See the guide above.

  3. Yes, it’s heat shrink. Don’t use electrical tape unless you want a gooey mess later on.

  4. If you pinch the sleeving together, it will create enough of an opening to push the wire through.

i happen to be very lucky - there’s a local electronics shop (not big box store) an actual local electronic supply house that i get all my supplies at.

they call this awesomeness ‘expanding loom’ or ‘braided sleeving’ you should call around see if you can find a local electronics supplier.

i don’t know how much it usually goes for anywhere but they sell it to me for about $0.60 usd/ft.

still beats waiting for the delivery truck to arrive :slight_smile:

[media=youtube]tiPcmwrdZv8"[/media] There are a bunch just like it but I like this guy’s accent and presentation of information…which is usually terrible on youtube tutorials.

hahaha that’s one hell of an accent

i’m still confused as to how exactly the branches are coming off of the main sleeving. i’m assuming it only makes sense to crimp on QDs after you’ve got your wires setup the way you want them to be. thanks for the links everyone - i’m off to try it out :smiley:

This thread is awesome. That ShinJN stick is a thing of beauty. Ill definitely be looking to this thread for inspiration when im doing my first stick as soon as LL gets me my parts.

I purchased my line from here https://www.cabletiesandmore.com

At .24 cents a foot you cant beat it!

http://bluecouch.com.au/?p=48
Same concept

Well I WAS going to buy just the 4.4 mm braided sleeving from that murdermods place but they have a minimum order of 20 bucks so I just said eff it and got their whole kit (the cheaper one).

What size sleeving is everyone using? Im using the 1/8th and this is tough. It took me about 45 min to sleeve and cut the joystick wiring and thats only 5 wires!

I just found out this thread existed. I’ll elaborate on my methods.

  1. Where can I buy the stuff? Is there a certain brand/type that’s best? Can’t find any at my local hardware/electronics store in Canada. Any online retailers?

I buy my sleeving from Fry’s Electronics. See the following links:



For The Bear stick, I used 1/4". The cool thing about this particular sleeving is that it doesn’t show the inside wire when it is expanded. The design is a cross-hatch braid. Some places carry an all-in-one kit of sleeving. Frys has it for $19.99, but i’ve seen it cheaper elsewhere: http://www.frys.com/product/3778776

  1. How do you measure the lengths so perfectly? Anything other than great precision and careful measurements?

You pretty much have to mount all the hardware first, and use the sleeving itself to determine how long you need it to be. As for the wire, I make it the same length as the sleeving PLUS some more. You will end up with a bunch of little unused pieces of wire. You can use those for a breadboard or something.

  1. Is that tube-shrink on the ends?

Yup.

  1. How do you create the ‘branches’ or openings for the wires to come out of the middle of the sleeving? Any specific procedure?

There are some brands of sleeving that has holes already in it. That is probably the easiest route to go. Some don’t have such a tight cross-hatch design so it’s easy to squeeze together and insert a wire in. The sleeving I used was a bit tough to run wire through so I had to use 26 gauge solid wire. Braided wire is not your friend if you want to achieve what I did with The Bear, using the sleeving that I used.

The whole process of getting the wires in the sleeving took a few hours. By the time I finished, the entire sleeve was filled with wires and it was a tight fit. Wiring like this takes a while so prepare to spend a good time of your day doing it.

Pro-tip: start working the wire from the exit end. It’ll be much easier.

This thread helped me a lot on my build. Pics are here

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=6956668&postcount=14129