Wiring fans and other circuits in system... tape or solder?

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n64man120

2[H]4U
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I was just curious what the general consensus was on this issue. When i'm cutting/splicing wire's in my case to hide and lengthen them... should i take the time to solder every joint or will a tight twisting with a clean electrical tape job be sufficient? Clearly soldering is better and its a matter of preference but I was wondering what the general concenus of this was for case work.
 
when there is no chance of staining tape usually works but its really a cheapo fix and not very reliable.

n64man120 said:
I was just curious what the general consensus was on this issue. When i'm cutting/splicing wire's in my case to hide and lengthen them... should i take the time to solder every joint or will a tight twisting with a clean electrical tape job be sufficient? Clearly soldering is better and its a matter of preference but I was wondering what the general concenus of this was for case work.
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n64man120 said:
I was just curious what the general consensus was on this issue. When i'm cutting/splicing wire's in my case to hide and lengthen them... should i take the time to solder every joint or will a tight twisting with a clean electrical tape job be sufficient? Clearly soldering is better and its a matter of preference but I was wondering what the general concenus of this was for case work.
Click to expand...

Inline crimp connectors (simple end to end splices), or wire nuts (more than 2 wire connection) for me. Unless it's going to be seen (and it's actually something I care about how it looks, like my main modded case), then deffinately Solder + heat shrink tubing.
 
I'd say it's fine. When I installed my car's remote start that's the way you had to do it

====---==== I'd strip some wire from the middle like that..

then seperate the uninsulated wire ===-<>-===

then I'd put the other wire through the hole and wrap it around both the left and right side. lay the wires together and tape tightly over them both.
 
Solder is a whole lot better, especially for applications like this that involve transmitting power. You might get away with something a little less robust, but solder is best. Crimp-on connectors are also a very viable option if they're a simple type that simply joins two wires end to end. Wire nuts will look messy, and will be worse the more wires you shorten.
 
Teancum said:
Solder is a whole lot better, especially for applications like this that involve transmitting power. You might get away with something a little less robust, but solder is best. Crimp-on connectors are also a very viable option if they're a simple type that simply joins two wires end to end. Wire nuts will look messy, and will be worse the more wires you shorten.
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Crimp-on connectors interest me very much since alot of my connections are behind the motherboard tray and its not easy to unwire things back through the routed holes. Are there basic 1 wire connectors or just standard molex's? And how would I crimp my wires to do this.
 
The kind of crimpers you're looking for are probably like these. I don't know where to get a crimper for this type of connector, though.
 
Teancum said:
The kind of crimpers you're looking for are probably like these. I don't know where to get a crimper for this type of connector, though.
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You could use something like this to crimp it, or just a pair of pliers.
 
That's a good alternative to heatshrink and solder, i'll definitly look into it.

What about making my own 3 or 4pin molex's or something else for quick disconnect?
 
keep in mind if anything shorts to the back of your motherboard tray things WILL be fried.
 
n64man120 said:
what do you mean?
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Real simple. Exposed wires are BAD reguardless of where they connected to intially.
The chasis is grounded to an AC ground. You're running DC power through everything. If any wires carrying DC voltage touch the chassis, it creates an instant short from a DC source to an AC ground effectively killing pretty darn near everything that wire was connected to. Take it from experiance, I destroyed a 486 motherboard and melted a CPU fan because I didn't take the time to soldier the wires and insulate them properly.
Soldier them, soldier them, SOLDIER THEM. You car audio guys, yeah it's fine to leave wires tapped because if it shorts the fuse will blow protecting the circuit. :mad: There is no fuse in PC circuitry, not even in power supplies anymore. Soldier the wires, tape them, or use liquid electrical tape (liquid vinyl basically) to insulate them and ensure they don't short. It only takes one loose wire to destory hundreds of dollars worth of parts.
 
Neither.
If you have to lenghten a wire do it right the first time and just replace it.

If you have to shorten a wire simply cut it and re-terminate it.
 
why would a DC source shorted to an AC GROUND do anything like melt a fan?

the AC is not providing the power. the DC is.. which is 12v or less in computers...i know 12v is plentyto fry something....but how coult it MELT a fan...

unless i just dont know much about electronics and AC vs DC
:edit:
Mister X said:
Neither.
If you have to lenghten a wire do it right the first time and just replace it.

If you have to shorten a wire simply cut it and re-terminate it.
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QFT.
:edit2:NVM
 
Yea yea yea I got it, but what about making quick disconnects on my wires so the connections aren't permenant?
 
use molexes ;)
or these

or
these
^just make shure the part that has the exposed metal while its disconnecteed is NOT on the wire connected directly to the power supply
 
Your reasoning between the AC ground and DC ground/voltage is incorrect. The only reason things get damaged from shorts is because it will attempt to carry a ton of current, which can toast IC's. Not any sort of AC/DC discrepency. The AC/DC difference is meaningless in this case.

The_Mage18 said:
Real simple. Exposed wires are BAD reguardless of where they connected to intially.
The chasis is grounded to an AC ground. You're running DC power through everything. If any wires carrying DC voltage touch the chassis, it creates an instant short from a DC source to an AC ground effectively killing pretty darn near everything that wire was connected to. Take it from experiance, I destroyed a 486 motherboard and melted a CPU fan because I didn't take the time to soldier the wires and insulate them properly.
Soldier them, soldier them, SOLDIER THEM. You car audio guys, yeah it's fine to leave wires tapped because if it shorts the fuse will blow protecting the circuit. :mad: There is no fuse in PC circuitry, not even in power supplies anymore. Soldier the wires, tape them, or use liquid electrical tape (liquid vinyl basically) to insulate them and ensure they don't short. It only takes one loose wire to destory hundreds of dollars worth of parts.
Click to expand...
 
you are correct in your suspicion of his claim.

4b5eN+EE said:
why would a DC source shorted to an AC GROUND do anything like melt a fan? the AC is not providing the power. the DC is.. which is 12v or less in computers...i know 12v is plentyto fry something....but how coult it MELT a fan... unless i just dont know much about electronics and AC vs DC
Click to expand...
 
The_Mage18 said:
The chasis is grounded to an AC ground. You're running DC power through everything. If any wires carrying DC voltage touch the chassis, it creates an instant short from a DC source to an AC ground effectively killing pretty darn near everything that wire was connected to. Take it from experiance, I destroyed a 486 motherboard and melted a CPU fan because I didn't take the time to soldier the wires and insulate them properly.
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First, it's tied to Earth Ground, Not 'AC ground' (I suppose neutral instead of active? ).
Earth isn't tied to any voltage source, in fact it just runs to a piece of metal stuck in the ground (hence the term 'earth').
As was pointed out, it causes bad things because of the massive current draw a short has. (V = I*R, v = 12V, R = a few hundreths or a few thousandths of an Ohm, = lots of current, far more than any PSU is designed to deliver).

Also the whole point of having a seperate ground to deal with shorts is that it can carry harmful charges away from the circuit protecting as much of it as possible.



You car audio guys, yeah it's fine to leave wires tapped because if it shorts the fuse will blow protecting the circuit. :mad: There is no fuse in PC circuitry, not even in power supplies anymore.
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Yes, actually there are.
And in addition to that, most (all?) PSUs include some faster acting (inrush current mandate the use of slowblow fuses, so a milli-S (or a few) instead of micro-S for fast acting fuses) overcurrent protection to protect themselves (and your hardware) from shorts.
 
Thanks for backing up my claim about it frying things.

Although some of your logic is maybe a little inaccurate.

Anyway.. Here's what will happen your wire comes loose let's say and touches the mobo tray. Now it's grounded and it will find a path most likely through your motherboard tray and other components to ground. You will most likely fry at least your motherboard. I had a fan wire come loose once and touch my drive bays and I lost that HD with everything on it. And yeah with little resistance it will carry as much current as possible which is not good. what happened to me was a wire came loose out of a molex sparked against the drive bay and the comptuer turned off with now-fried components about 6 years ago.
 
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