Vantec Sleeving Kit... Help

[Vio1]

Hi, I decided to do some stuff to my computer so I bought 3 cas fans with leds, and I bought the Vantec Sleeving kit.

1) How do I cut the sleeving without screwing up the weave (starts to unwind)? It says to use a hot knife or rope cutters.... Where do you get a hot knife? Ive never heard of rope cutters... any other suggestions?

2) How do you put on the shrink tubing? I tried a hairdryer and it wasnt doing very much... left it for 3 mins and it was hardly smaller... tried a lighter and it shrunk real quick (however there were burn marks... no good).

[Suicide Al]

hot knife basically means you heat the blade up on the knife until it cuts through the mesh just by pushing on it almost like you were going to cut a chunk of ice or something by melting through it. and to shrink the heat shrink, use a lighter but don't hold the flame on it, hold the tip of the flame about 1/2inch away from the tubing and move it back and forth so that it doesn't burn.

[k3nshin]

the best way of shrinkning heatshrink is with a heat gun

[Vio1]

It says "easy" on the packaging.... YA RIGHT!!

How do you put the sleeves on??? I tried putting on the largest sleeve onto the mobo power supply (the largest cable) and there is no way that you can get the sleeve over the power plug... no matter how I tried to bend the wires, it would not get over...

How do you put the sleeves on?
For the regular wires that power your hdd and cd-rom I can fit the second largest sleeve on, however there isnt enough of it for the whole psu.... I have 10ft each of 2 smaller sleeves, and the wires would fit in... however, again I cant get the sleeve over the power plugs...


How do u install these blasted sleeves?
Also, I tried heating up a razor blade (w/ a soldering iron, cause thats the only thing I have that gets real hot) in order to cut through the sleeving... doesnt work! The blade gets mighty hot, but I cant melt through the sleeving. How do I cut the sleeving with ease and without ending up with a fraying edge?

[ElectroX]

You have to remove the molex connector of your PSU in order to sleeve it...

[Vio1]

how? How do I remove the power plugs?

[violineb]

I think you need one of these
http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/slt-03.html

http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/search.html?mv_profile=searchstring&mv_sort_field=description&mv_matchlimit=33&mv_searchspec=molex+pin+remover

ps (I have no idea what I'm talking about ;)

BTW how did you end up with Vio as your screen name? (I thought I was the only Vio in the world :o

[Vio1]

anyway of removing the molex power plugs without the specific tool (as linked by violineb)? I dont want to spend $10-20 on a stupid little thing that has a one time use.... anything around the house that would also work?

[violineb]

Maybe some scissers and electrical tape :D
Or needle nose pliers? I haven't the slightest clue yet again. As I haven't sleeved any wires.

[ZachM]

Someone mentioned that they found a metal ink-pen cartridge that they took the cap off the back. It fit over the molex pin perfectly and bent the hooks in. You can use a needle, that's a bit harder. I did it with a sharp Xacto knife once. I think the best option for you would be to find a small metal tube that fits over the pins in the molex.

This (http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXSD16&P=7) is a hot knife. It's basically a soldering iron with an Xacto blade at the end of it. I believe you can pick them up from Radio Shack. Hobby shops that carry RC planes often times stock them too.

When you tried the hair dryer on the heatshrink did you have it on the highest setting? I used a hair dryer on heatshrink and it worked fine. It could be that my heatshrink could shrink with lower temperatures than your's. The lighter method works though. Use the technique that Al mentioned above about holding the heat shrink above the flame.

[Hexnan]

It isnt that hard once you get it down ( i just sleeved my PSU for 10$)

1st off when u cut the sleeves grab a lighter and melt the edges before you expand it any. this will solve the fraying problem.

start tearing apart some fancy looking ink pens and get the metel ink cartridge from it. the fat end is the glory end, meaning that the end with the ball point pen in it is the end you need. i tore that out with a pair of pliers and then sucked some alchohol up into the cartridge (with my mouth) until its was fairly clean. when its clean enough to operate with slip the fat end down over the little prong inside the molex connector. if its to small gradually expand it with a small screw, nail, needle nose till its big enough. if that doesnt work get a 7/64" drill bit and carefully drill it out (thats what i had to do).

i marked my ground wires (black) for each molex connector with a marker ( i wasnt sure if it mattered if they got mixed up or not) after that its a breeze. hardest part for me was getting those molex connectors off and remembering to slide the heat shrink on before the sleeving. all you really need is a lighter, scissors, and a metal ink cartridge or moelx removal tool.

As far as the ATX connector i have no idea. Im having that problem too. Ill probably just use some split flex tube or split wire loom and some elctrical tape which you can buy in an assortment of colors

Hope this helps

Hex

[Vio1]

I successfully did the mod... used two sowing needles to remove the molex connectors... it took soo long to finish the whole thing.... but now its done and it looks good.
thnx for all the help!

[TazExtreme3]

Paper Clip works too