Until recently, I wasn't aware of "thermal wire strippers". These are devices which heat up an element that is then used to melt through the insulation of the wire, allowing you to easily strip it.
I had never realized how miraculously effective they are, nor had my father who built stuff since high school (he was etching PCBs at home in the 50s) and was an electrical engineer for his whole career. Holy shit. They are amazing. Before this, the most time consuming part of wiring up a project was often not the soldering, but just stripping the ends of the short little pieces of wire (shorter wire being harder to strip, because there's less wire to grab and pull).
The thermal stripper does it EFFORTLESSLY. You put it in, twist, gently pull, and off the insulation comes. The one I have doesn't get hot enough to burn you (well, I think the temperature is hot enough, but not enough thermal mass nor power output in the hot part) - the hot element is a little inch-long strip of metal with a slot in the middle, narrower at one end, so you put it in the wide end, slide to narrow end and twist 180 degrees.
It is magic, and I cannot recommend it more highly. The one I have is a PTS-10 from PATCO. I can leave it plugged in over night and it's fine the next day, no prob (just like my old vomit-green colored weller soldering irons) They're like $80 new, and worth every penny. I am in no way affiliated with nor compensated by PATCO - I just want to share this, because, well - because nobody ever told me about these, and I'd been stripping wires the hard way my whole life (well - almost my whole life, I wasn't doing anything with electronics until first or second grade IIRC). If I could go back in time and hand myself one 20 years ago, I totally would.
Has anyone else experienced the magic of these? Why are these such a well kept secret? Am I going to discover some hideous disadvantage to them?
Hm, my PTS-10 does not take teflon insulation off! (I was really hoping it would, as I have a huge reel of 6-conductor teflon insulated wire, and it is extremely hard to strip by hand)
Yes I was going to say that. It also doesn’t strip ptfe covered wire. I found the best is to use those wire strippers that are for a specific wire size.
DrAzzy:
Hm, my PTS-10 does not take teflon insulation off! (I was really hoping it would, as I have a huge reel of 6-conductor teflon insulated wire, and it is extremely hard to strip by hand)
What model do you use that does?
Same unit.
It works well on the teflon #24 and #20 wire I have.
Use pliers to pull insulation off.
I have tried the HAKKO offering, it works a better.
Years ago, I used a tweezer version for back plane wrapping with teflon insulation.
didn’t need pliers as the tweezers did the pulling.
We stopped using thermal wire strippers on PTFE many years ago. The fumes are harmful if inhaled. I'm not think of some kid sniffing glue, but breathing air from the general area is not advised.
Personally I seldom have to strip enough wire at one time to make them worth while. I do have a set of Mil Spec strippers which does an excellent job and has an adjustable stop to control the strip length.
MarkT:
Sounds neat - just don't try it on PTFE cables though, poisonous fumes.
PTFE and teflon are the same thing
The quantity of toxic fumes that would be created stripping a few teflon insulated wires is negligible - if you were doing it all day, like for your job, then I'd consider it an issue, but doing a few teflon insulated wires isn't something to get worked up about.
DrAzzy:
Hm, my PTS-10 does not take teflon insulation off! (I was really hoping it would, as I have a huge reel of 6-conductor teflon insulated wire, and it is extremely hard to strip by hand)
What model do you use that does?
I bought our thermal wire strippers on Ebay, years ago. They are hand-held and have a push button to activate the heat. Squeeze to close the two heat elements around the wire. Heat elements have a notch for the copper wire.
I have had to disassemble several times to repair. fairly large transformer inside.
I heard about this from reading the NASA Wiring Standards but I always assumed that it was unaffordable for a hobby. They also mention chemical strippers.
That's a great read from NASA. I like how they show you not only the correct way but the wrong way. It makes it easier to see what to look for when you screw up a crimp or something. They even get down to details of "this method is OK for ground test but not for the thing which is actually going to fly."
Before being used for fiber optics, they where the de-facto standard for ptfe and kynar insulation stripping. About $30 each for each wire gauge. Precision micro machined cutting dies with centering guides. I still have a pair from forty years ago for 30 gauge wire wrap wire. The handles are color coded, dark green is 0.011 inches for 30awg. They work as well today as they did new.
