It is way too hot and will burn, melt or warp the tubing. When using this method, make sure to not touch the heat shrink with the tip of the iron. Move the iron back and forth while rotating the wire, so that heat can reach all sides. To use a soldering iron for heat shrink, hold the barrel of the iron close to the tubing without touching it. For shrinking larger pieces, the limited surface area and heat of a soldering iron is not enough. This method works best on small pieces of tubing. You can also use a soldering iron to activate heat shrink. Reducing the flame and/or holding the butane torch at a greater distance from the tubing is enough to prevent damage. While higher temperatures sound riskier for overheating shrink tubing, in practice there is not that much to worry about. For multiple or larger pieces of heat shrink, this tool is a much better solution. Not only does it give you a flame that is easier to control, it also outputs more heat to a larger area. One step up from a lighter is a butane torch. If you have no other solution available, and you are working in a sufficiently safe area, a lighter is an okay option for activating heat shrink. If held too closely, it can burn heat shrink, wires, your fingers and potentially ignite flammable materials in the area. You can mitigate this problem by holding the blue base of the flame next to the heat shrink, instead of the tip.Īnother possible issue is the effect of the flame on other objects. This is not an issue if you use black tubing, but for colored tubing this can be something to watch out for. One thing to be careful with is that its open flame can leave black soot on your heat shrink. It has a sufficiently high temperature for every type of heat shrink and works quicker than a hair dryer. LighterĪn alternative option for activating heat shrink is a simple lighter. Because of the low temperature, it can take a while with a hair dryer. You will have to rotate the wire or blow dryer to evenly spread the heat.īe patient as you wait for the tubing to get up to temperature and shrink. To use a hair dryer on heat shrink, simply set it to its highest heat setting and hold its nozzle close to the tubing until it shrinks. Polyolefin heat shrink is likely to work best, as it has the lowest activation temperature of common heat shrink materials. Hair dryers tend to have a low upper temperature limit for safety reasons, and not all of them get hot enough to activate shrink tubing.ĭepending on the output temperature of the blow dryer, you might get full, partial or no shrinkage. Whether you can use a hair dryer for heat shrink depends on the specific model of hair dryer and the type of heat shrink being used. Blow dryers are just small heat guns, after all. Alternatives to a heat gun Hair dryerĪ hair dryer (or blow dryer) can sometimes be used instead of a heat gun. This is not as important when choosing a heat source, as it is always possible to reduce heat by moving the heat source further away. This leads to a loose fit that does not protect well.Īside from the shrinking temperature, each type of heat shrink also has a maximum temperature.
#Heat shrink full
If you don’t sufficiently heat the tubing, it does not shrink to its full potential. For the most popular tubing materials, Polyolefin and PVC, these lie around 90☌ (194☏) and 100☌ (212☏), respectively. Whenever you choose a tool for heating shrink tubing, it is important to keep the tube’s shrinking temperature in mind.
Rotate the wire so you can heat all sides of the tubing evenly to make sure it shrinks to size and that there are no air bubbles inside. Move the nozzle of the heat gun back and forth along the length of tubing so it starts to shrink. Hold a heat gun about 3–6 inches (7.6–15.2 cm) away from the tubing and turn it on. Heat the tubing with a heat gun so it shrinks around the wire.
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