source of silicone mains cable by the metre?

[The Night Tripper]

Hi All I would like to rewire my Dad's old 'big copper bit' 85W soldering iron with some modern silicone mains cable. All the suppliers I've seen sell it by the reel, and I only want 3m or so. So - any suggestions for a source?

1.0mm three-core would probably be fine.

Thanks Jon N

[Cicero]

soldering iron

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TLC Electrical sell most cables by the metre but postage can be quite high. Have a look for yourself to see if they've got what you want:

[Dave Plowman (News)]

1mm is a bit overkill.

Butyl will do the job as well, and is more readily available. 0.75mm - if it will physically fit.

old it would probably have been TRS rubber cable. Got a drum of that here.

[Tim Watts]

The Night Tripper wibbled on Wednesday 04 August 2010 08:05

It was either Farnell or RS I got my last lot from, very recently. Try Farnell first - easy to find with the parametric searching feature.

[John Rumm]

Any plumbers merchant will sell you some off the reel usually (for immersion heater and CH applications)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Silicone or butyl? And in black?

[John Rumm]

Usually silicone IME, not specified the colour in the past, so don't know if they have a choice.

[The Night Tripper]

Hi Tim

I tried both places before posting - they only seem to do it by the reel, unless I've missed something.

Regards J^n

[The Night Tripper]

Hi Dave

Yes, I know - it was just a suggested size.

Really? the butyl cable I have seen is rated for 'up to 85 degrees (C)'. It may be that it would survive momentary brushes with a soldering iron, but (as I'm sure you know) an iron is a lot hotter than that.

Antex produce their (much smaller) soldering irons with the option of a silicon cable or a cheaper non-silicon one. You can get the cable separately:

only 1.2m long, which is a bit short in this case.

TLC local to me - I hadn't thought about them, so thanks.

Quite possibly - it's pretty ancient. It seemed old when I first handled it nearly 40 years ago - used it for soldering model aircraft fuel tanks...

Cheers J^n

[Tim Watts]

The Night Tripper wibbled on Wednesday 04 August 2010 22:33

1491467 2-core 0.75mm2 1491468 3-core 0.75mm2

Mind you, what I didn't realise was that they don't do smaller sizes by the m. I used 1mm2 version of the above for some LV halogen drops, but I guess for an iron you'd rather have something much lighter than 6mm dia.

OK - red herring. ebay?

[The Night Tripper]

Hi Tim

Well, I missed those, so thanks very much. £2.75/m tho'?? oh well ...

Nah, 6mm is fine. This is a big heavy iron, not a small Antex or Weller etc. The 6mm cable will be substantially thinner and (more importantly) more flexible than the ancient heavy duty 13A cable it is replacing.

Very little, to my surprise, unless I've not got the right search term.

Thanks a lot for the FEC links

Cheers J^n

[Spamlet]

Buy a cheap garden extension reel and cut a bit off.

S

[Man at B&Q]

[e-mail]...

=A0 London SW

What guarantee are you prepared to offer that it will be silicone cable?

MBQ

[js.b1]

As stated Farnell do Lapp Kabel silicone cable in 3-core. It will be red in colour, extremely flexible, fine stranded.

For a soldering iron you want silicone a) mainly so it does not tug on the iron when in a stand or when in use and b) re contact temperature. The downside of silicone is it will not slide over surfaces easily, hence the better clothes irons with silicone cable also have it covered in a woven fabric mesh. So a silicone iron cord might do, although price "a bit samey".

Price is not bad, I'm afraid that is what it costs unless you can find a generic "Performance Power" or similar brand which will be about 50% less than the Lapp Kabel kind of price. If it were just a tough rubber like H07RNF you can get that cheaply from

- basically a marquee or stage lighting supplier to shovel it by the shed load. Someone on Ebay has 50m of H07RNF 1.5mm 3c for =A338 currently which is rather good (might be asian manufacture which will make seems to mean a stiffer cable compared to say Drakaflex, probably rubber composition v ambient temperature).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

messagenews: [e-mail]...

d.

I'll guarantee no cheap garden extension reel will be silicone cable...

[The Night Tripper]

Thanks for the info.

I hadn't realised clothes irons might use silicone cable these days...

OK, fair enough. I'll probably put it on my list of things to buy with my next FEC order, now I know it's there.

Cheers Jon N

[Rick Hughes]

TLC sells all they're cable by the m

[billroberts453]

This is the correct link for the rapidonline site:

Spares/Iron-Cables They sell Antex 1.5m silicone lead for £4.71 + P&P + VAT (12/08/2015)

[billroberts453]

[dennis]

If that's all he wants then CPC is cheaper with the postage.