Liquid Electrical Tape

[Harko]

I had my heated grips bodged fitted by the Honda dealer last autumn. Wasn't too impressed at all with the way the electrical connections* had been taped over with bog standard electrical tape  so I took the tape off and fitted self amalgamating tape from Maplins (Maplins Self Amalgamating Tape) which is a far better tape for the purpose but still not perfect.

Fitting my bars last week, I saw that the tape, although had held, had a small hole where one of the connector blocks had worked it's way through with the constant moving of the handlebars.  I redid the tape and is again all fine (well for the time being at least )

Today I came across this product Liquid Tape which pricked my interest. It looks just the job for keeping water out of electrical bodges connections.

Has anyone used this or something similar before?

Harko

*The dealer wired the headed grips control box into the front brake electrical connection  so that the the heated grips turn off when the bike is switched off). Rather than use a piggyback connector, they stripped back the plastic an inch down from the brake connector and soldered the two wires together before taping over with electrical tape - A right o' bodge!

[jp]

yep, 'Star brite Liquid Electrical Tape'
used it for some connections on my boat.
black gooey stuff that sets rubbery
seems to keep the water out, even sea water.

[Exminiman]

How can a soldered joint be considered a bodge over "piggy back" connector?. As an ex-sparky, I used soldered joints and electrical tape for 15 years. If  applied correctly, it should never be a problem. I never had a bad connection, even when being used with thatcham alarm/immobilsers. Piggy back connectors (scotch-locks?) should be banned....

[Harko]

How can a soldered joint be considered a bodge over "piggy back" connector?. As an ex-sparky, I used soldered joints and electrical tape for 15 years. If  applied correctly, it should never be a problem. I never had a bad connection, even when being used with thatcham alarm/immobilsers. Piggy back connectors (scotch-locks?) should be banned....

Being involved with the electronics for the last 25+ years, I have more than a few hours experience with the use of a soldering iron. 

...Your right,  In normal situations, a soldered joint should be far superior to a piggyback connection and if I were doing it, that's what I would have done - but there's soldering and there's sOlDerInG.

The bared wires were not kept clean (grubby mechanics fingers I guess), far too much solder used because the solder did not flow (joint is dry), the surrounding wire sleeving is burnt and shrivelled exposing more wire than necessary (because the solder was not flowing) and then the whole joint taped over with a bit of electrical tape* all within 20mm of the spade connector on the brake switch [20mm  ) - in other words, a right o' bodge.  Oh, and one more thing... where the mechanic had stripped the covering off with a knife, some of the strands of the wire have been cut  so the main original wire has in effect a few less strands and is now considerably weaker.

If they had used a piggyback connector, then at least it would have been easier to maintain and the original wire would still be intact and in this instance, probably more reliable as once a spade connector is made there is really no reason to keep disconnecting/connecting it again - which is probably the main reason spade connections fail.


As it stands if the wire breaks (and it will because of the weakened wire) it will be a PITA to repair.  Already I have a loose spade connector on the brake switch and I have had to remake it once in the last few months because I had no rear brake light when using the front brake.

Harko.

* I have used reels and reels of electrical tape - has it's uses but, IMHO on the wiring loom of a bike exposed to the elements is not one of them.   

[Exminiman]

Ahhhh I see....

[jp]

Nothing like a good glass of Ch?teau de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

anyway, just to join in the spirit of the thing, when I first started using electrical insulating tape it was cloth impregnated with Chatterton's compound, which also worked better when warm. Can't get it nowadays, I think because Guta Perchas have died out; back then TV closed down every evening between 6 and 7 and I was worried that my dad would be called up to go to Suez.

My first bike had a portion of its (pathetic) electrics  held together with it.

A good soldered spliced cable with heat shrink would seem to offer a practical solution. It is true you have to know how to solder properly though.
for the uninitiated this might help.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Master-a-perfect-inline-wire-splice-everytime/step7/Wrapping-up/
Adhesive lined heat shrink would be good too.
http://www.rapidonline.com/Cables-Connectors/Sleeving-Heat-Shrink/Heat-Shrink/Deray-4:1-Adhesive-lined/123496

properly crimped connections should be as good electrically as soldered, it is after all how most of the connections are made on the bike, but is nearly  as easy to make a bad crimped joint as a bad soldered one.




I think 'Working with electrical connections' should be part of the primary core curriculum.

[The Prodded Dog]

Being so close to the Male part of the connection I would have plumped for a separate female spade connector that has a male tang. This allows in effect two female wired circuits to connect to the male prong.
Easier to disconnect each individual circuit then.
Off to drink Chateau de Special Brew now.
The Prodded Dog.

[Harko]

Snip...I think 'Working with electrical connections' should be part of the primary core curriculum.

Especially true for motorbike technicians.

Being so close to the Male part of the connection I would have plumped for a separate female spade connector that has a male tang. This allows in effect two female wired circuits to connect to the male prong. Easier to disconnect each individual circuit then.

Yep - that would have worked... What ever would have kept the original wire intact.



IMHO, the problem is that because service departments are the year round bread winners for the dealers - like all main dealer establishments for vehicles. The techs simply are not able to spend as much time as they would (possibly) like to to do a proper job because of the bean counters within the franchise.  Any mech that takes to long on a job will not survive - they will eventually be shown pushed out the door.


Harko


[As an aside:  I used to be a service engineer working on typesetters, film setters and plate setters and traveled all over the UK/Europe.  When I started, I was given my main customers - these were to be my responsibility and whenever possible, if any of these customers reported a fault - I went.

The engineer I took over from was pretty much useless and the running state of the machines was generally poor.  They were hastily serviced, repaired and bodged and generally quite unreliable. They films/plates they produced were usable but by-and-large, the quality of the machines output were no where near the quality of new machines due to dirty, poorly aligned,and poorly set up optics (a job that cannot be rushed).

I tried my best to bring these machines  back up to a good, reliable, serviceable state that output good quality films and plates but was constantly told during service meetings back at base that I was taking too long on service calls (and thus must be a crappy engineer). The result of this was that I was heavily monitored with my time on site and my annual pay rise was non existent for the two years prior to leaving (I voted with my feet in the end).  The fact that there were eventually fewer calls to my customers and customer satisfaction was up did not seem to matter. My bosses flawed argument was that even if I went to other customers (which I did start to do as my sites had fewer calls) I took too long there to - thus must be a crappy engineer.

...Strange then that I was sometimes called to far away places as a trouble shooter. Onetime I was called to Turkey for an optical problem on a new installation. The local fully trained engineers with a weeks worth of 2nd/3d line telephone support had not solved the problem with the optics.  (They called on me because of all the engineers in Europe, I was the only one 'dumb' enough to strip them down to their basic parts (experience I gained with my customers and the only one brave enough to strip them down and do a full factory alignment in the factory on the training course )).  I spent two days traveling there and less than one minute with my head in the optics bed! One of the laser masks had moved in transit and all it took was a single turn of an adjuster to realign the mask!

PS>  The guys giving 2nd/3rd line hardware support were the same guys complaining I was taking too long.]

[bristolsaint]

My heated grips were horribly bodged with insulating tape by Fowlups of Bristol. They now let water in. I'd be ashamed to work to that low a standard. And this on a bike I bought from new. Twats