Using that shrink wrap tubing stuff!

I'm buying a couple of 20m lengths of IXOS 603 to connect my Surround Sound Processor to a couple of rear speakers. The intention is that they run from the amp loosely around the edge of the room on the floor to the speakers.

I don't want to bother hiding them (floorboards anyway!!) So, I had an idea of covering the two cables in that shrink wrap tubing stuff, in a colour that works with the room, light blue, and almost have it as a 'feature'.

My assumption is that I get a size of tubing that allows the cable to slip through fairly easily but I wonder if anyone has advice on what could be a long and frustrating process of threading through! Also, is there likely to be any problem with having the two cables in close proximity? Finally, I think you shrink this stuff with a hair drier ... is this right!?

Thanks

Dave :JOEL:

 

Yes you can usually shrink 'heat shrink tubing' with a hair drier, however a quicker and better result will be got if you use a heat gun or maybe a paint stripping heat gun, naked flames give unpredictable and patchy results with the possibility of damaging the tubing.
Heat shrink can be fairly expensive stuff, maybe even more expensive than the conducting cables it is protecting.

Threading 20 meters of cable through some heat shrink has the potential of being a very good way of working yourself into a rage and practising the full range of your swearing vocabulary.

Two methods i have used to distribute cable around a room are with the use of some kind of conduit attached to the skirting board, depending one the colour of your skirting board this can be acheived with the use of many materials, it doesnt have to be electrical conduit, artistic licence can be utilased with this method.
The second way i distribute cable is under the floor boards, luckily i have a large crawl space under all of my downstairs floors so this is my prefered method now, i can justv pop a small hole directly behind the required position, these ha oles are very easily repaired/filled at a later date when not required any more.

Have fun.

 

Very eloquently put sir.

Cheers

 

I've also heared some suggest it has a negative effect on the music signal. The one true way to find out would be to heat shrink a long length of cable ...oops that what your going to do !

 

LMAO

Indeed it will probably alter the cables capacitance / metre.

We put you off yet Dave?

Cheers

 

I was using some heatshrink today. A hairdryer works very nicely to shrink to the required size.

BTW, RA is a tight fisted so and so, I bought some banana plugs/heatshrink sets for my speaker cable and also asked for a couple of extra heatshrinks to go over the other banana plugs. Despite placing a reasonable sized order, he charged me 25p per heatshrink instead of throwing them in.

As if he doesn't make enough profit on the gear he sells

Robbo

 

Timpy ... yes, I think I have been put off a bit.

Spending a hard earned weekend trying to thread some cable through a bit of tube isn't my idea of fun, esp. as it may actually impact negatively on the sound.

I will have to think again :-(

 

tie a couple 5mm bolts onto a bit of string,feed that through the tube, attach the cables to the string ,pull string back through tubing and the cables will follow,putting a bit of fairy liguid or talc inside the tube will make things a bit easyer

 

Hi Dave

I doubt any change in the cables parameters wiil have much of an impact sonically, well, not much by doing what you're doing anyway, particularly as it'sspeaker cable and your lengths aren't going to be excessive (they aren't are they?).

If you ever want to get the heatshrink off again, I'd follow hippy's advice with the talc. Aside from making it easier to get them in in the first place, some cables tend to stick to heated heatshrink, so it would be a cut off job and may mark the cable inside where it had bonded.

Cheers

 

You can get some intresting heat shrink ....I noticed the other day RS had Luminous heat shrink.

Also Teflon [PTFE] types too.

 

Zanash ... now I'm starting to like the idea again. I think some nicely packaged speaker cable would look cool stretching around the room on a wood floor. Only if you're a minimalist like me ... dunno how it would look in Buckingham Palace ;-)

Timpy ... the talc idea is a good one but I haven't seen it in years. Maybe I should visit my elderly neighbour for some ;-)

Madhippy ... I'd thought of that initially so good to be reminded that it need not be a massive mission ... just a mission. I may try in say 2 metre lengths to make it easier, with an overlap at the heat shrink joints.

Dave

:JOEL:

 

for talc check out the baby supplies bit in the supermarket,chemist,wilkinsons ect,cost less than a quid for big tub of the stuff
if you want fun try heatshrinking a 75meter run of control cables and audio multi cores