Heat-Shrink Gun

[Yorkie]

I guess that like most, over the years I've used various ways to shrink heat-shrink tubing - a little blowtorch powered by a cigarette lighter, the edge of a soldering iron and so forth. Not ideal, but acceptable for occasional tasks. Recently I visited a chum who uses a lot of heat shrink tubing as a small sub contractor, and he showed me a gun he used - a bit like a paint-stripper but with a much smaller nozzle and adjustable heat control. Can't remember the brand - suffice to say that when I googled it the price was way beyond what I'd be prepared to pay for the limited use to which I'd put it.

Nevertheless, in my search I came across 'Fahrenheit' 28401 Hot Air Gun for heat-shrink tubing which looked quite a capable bit of kit. Its features are:

•Adjustable temperature control with settings from 50° - 500°C.
•2-stage air volume settings - Switchable airflow control LOW(200L/min) and HIGH (450L/min).
•With 3 different nozzles: Reflector; Concentrator and Ultra concentrator nozzle.
• Integral stand - Allows stationary bench-top use.
•Electronically monitored thermo sensor.

On the low setting it is 800 Watts, the temperature range is from 50C to 200C ,and the air flow is 0 - 200L/Min.

The high setting is 1,500 Watts, temperature range from 200C to 500C and the air flow is from 0 - 450L/Min.

The switch has high/off/low positions, and the rotary control which varies the temperature and air velocity is the round black end cap in the third pic down on the LH side of the screen at this link. When I ordered it I thought it just had two fixed settings - high/low, but the variable control makes it much more flexible.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HW20GVC/re...TE_3p_dp_1

At £29.95 I thought it worth a punt, and having had it for just over a month I must say I've been very pleased with it. The little 'ultra-concentrator' nozzle which clips on the end of the larger stepped nozzle allows a narrow 'beam' of hot air for heat-shrining tubing onto connectors and so forth. It has other uses such as a flameless 'blowlamp' for capillary soldered joints, or as a paint-stripper, or lifting vinyl tiles, but I bought it primarily for heat-shrink tube and thought it might be of interest to others.

As might be expected, it comes from the PRC and has the usual quaint instructions, helpfully advising that it must not be used as a hairdryer, don't use the gun 'straightly at the people or the animals' and 'must not be used in rain or 'dankly' places'. Glad I read the instructions then before I used it!

Hope that's of interest.

[Joe]

I think I'll stick to my lighter but one could be handy for soldering or tracing heat-induced faults. The trouble with hair-driers is that they warm such a big area that it doesn't narrow things down much.

- Joe

[camallison]

I have had one for a few months, of this type:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Am-Tech-1500W-Ho...d_cp_diy_3

I think they are all basically the same except for the amount of control offered. Mine also had a perfect chinglish manual too!

Colin

[Alan Douglas]

Sounds like a reasonable alternative to the industrial models for hobby use. I was lucky to find a Master Appliance heat gun at an auto flea market, built like a tank but naturally more expensive. At work we had a bevy of Ungar heat guns with plastic housings, intended only for shrinking tubing and fine for that, but not up to long-term continuous use. I had one tethered to my bench with stainless aircraft cable to keep it from growing legs and wandering off.

[Retired]

Hi,

Very interesting David. I used to use a candle for heat shrinking on a radio chassis.

When I saw the title though I thought of something completely different. At work we used big heat shrink guns for securing goods to pallets as in this video;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OG-kUtzIs

This was a process I never liked and it was so easy to blow holes in the film. Eventually we phased these guns out and installed a couple of "Stretch wrappers". These stretch wrappers were a huge improvement; the loaded pallet (electric motors) would be placed on the turntable and the end of the film securely tied to the pallet which in turn was set in motion; the roll of film was located on a vertical slide allowing the film to be adjusted on the run to suit pallet height; a polythene top cover would be added and this was trapped as the film was raised providing a secure load and also a great deal of protection against the weather. I've just found this second video showing this time a stretch wrapper in action. This particular wrapper is much too complicated; the wrappers we had installed were foot pedal operated and the film carriage simply lifted and lowered manually by hand the carriage being counter-balanced; these two wrappers were brilliant and were a good investment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1D4Rpk76-o

We could load 50 x 100 frame size motors in layers of ten with wooden spacers; secure with Signode metal strapping then finish off by stretch wrapping all on a single Euro sized pallet. The delivery drivers loved these because it was one lift at the customers premises by fork truck whereas previously the drivers would manually unload each motor one at a time and because the motors were loaded loosely many received transit damage so this method of packing was a total success.

Sorry to hi-jack your thread David but thought this information might be of interest to someone?

Kind regards, Col.

[Yorkie]

Sorry to hi-jack your thread David but thought this information might be of interest to someone?

Well it was interesting to me Colin!

The plastics they use are amazing - I'm surprised it didn't totally melt in the heat shrink video, on the receiving end of that gas blowtorch.

As to the heat-gun I bought, the smallest nozzle is only about 15mm diam, so the air flow is nice and concentrated.

Unlike most other heat guns, it's handy to be able to control both the temperature and air flow.

[Refugee]

In all my bits I have an RS branded heat shrink gun. It is less powerful than the paint stripper types we are talking about here.
The problem is that it needs to be repaired when I do find it.

[Radio Fixer]

Sounds good to me. My old Black and Decker, do everything: strip paint, heat shrink you name it is starting to sound very worn out. Motor not happy.

Gary

[Joe]

I'm not the only one that's still awake then.

- Joe

[Yorkie]

Yikes - I never knew there are two 3 0'clocks in a day!