Any tips for a noobie sleever

1. Mark everything. Even if you think you have a photographic memory, you'll end up forgetting where a wire goes, and put it back together wrong. Make drawings that are clearly labeled where each wire goes.

1a. Determine what wires you need and what wires you don't. No point sleeving wires you don't need and are not going to use. Just hide them behind the motherboard tray and be done with it.

2. Measure your sleeving carelfully and add extra, as the sleeving will not be as long when it is expanded around your wires.

2a. Gently melt the frayed ends of your cut sleeving before snaking them over your wires, or your gonna have a hell of a time, not enjoy your experience, and end up getting pissed.

3. Be very careful when heating the heatshrink tubing. I did mine with a lighter, but I had to work slow and careful to avoid burning anything.

3a. Don't use too much heatshrink tubing. It's not as flexible as the sleeving, and you don't want hassles when you go to plug things in.

4. Work slowly and carefully. You're not getting paid to do this, so no point in trying to "beat the clock" and make a mistake that could be easily avoided by taking your time. My first sleeving job took 8 hours, because I took my time.

5. Ask questions here if you get stuck. Better to ask a question than to bull into something you don't know and chance screwing something up.
 
Just to add to the above. I've found this makes it a little easier.
Find a tube equal size to the group of wires you want to sleeve. Slide the sleeve over the pipe and slide your wires into the tube. Pull out the tube while holding onto the wires and the sleeve at the other end. Helps when your doing a bunch of wires.
 
Buy an ATX 20 Pin removal tool. It is so much easier than trying to use 2 staples or something similar. I made the mistake of not buying one and paid for it with wasted time and sore fingers. :(

I found this site to be much more helpful than the one that is given in the FAQ section for this forum.

Good Luck!
 
here's my idea, don't do it. thing pissed me off, all i did was goto home depot buy some wire loom, and spool 10 bucks, 5min. and it is organized awesomely.
 
yeah but wireloom doesnt do the nice glowy thing.. and we all know, if it doenst glow it's not cool
 
Qwertyman said:
here's my idea, don't do it. thing pissed me off, all i did was goto home depot buy some wire loom, and spool 10 bucks, 5min. and it is organized awesomely.
Click to expand...
we are modders not quiters
 
I started using lighter for the shrinking of the heat shrink tubing and found that if you are not really careful you will get blackening of the tubing (I was using blue, since you might be using black it may not matter). Anyway I found that a regular hair dryer set on high worked marvelously, much faster and looked a lot better when done.

Make sure your labeled wires stay labeled, I had some scarry moments when, after all my fondling of the wires, most of the label had been rubbed off on my fingers and I had to decipher the smudged label.
 
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