I remember the first time I used that stuff many years ago. I was expecting it to harden into a silicone like gel and thought something had gone wrong when it turned into a sticky jelly.
I'd like to hear your opinion on what's the best way to waterproof electronic. I like the gel stuff (especially the one-part silicone that never hardens, even softer than this two-part version) over epoxy, because I fear hard epoxy won't handle shrinking and expanding, due to the temperature changes, very well.
we use this all the time for all underground applications, WISKA 1ltr 2pt, not expensive considering it's properties 'non setting' commercial use, much better than hard set resin
Without your video I would have assumed this product was complete garbage. In my experience, anything with "magic" or "miracle" in the name or description is expensive crap. Sigh. You've removed certainty from my life. Sometimes "magic" stuff works.
Great demo JW. Would have liked to see the whole encapsulated assembly submersed in a bucket of water for a few hours, then an insulation test to prove its integrity whilst moving the cables. We used to use a brown putty type of filler in metal conduit boxes years ago. Things have moved on since the 90s and these gels and epoxy resins don't seem to be getting cheaper... Hmmm.
I took apart a DRL module in a truck, a small circuit board designed to control daytime running lights. It had a gel compound that was obviously poured over the board like you did in the example. The board had overheated and one of the MOSFETs had failed. I wondered how this gel would dissipate heat, whether it would do as well as circulating air. In the field we use a lot of dielectric grease to exclude water, though it wouldn't work as well as this.
I get dielectric gel and plug and bulb grease from AGS in Muskegon in the USA, it is expensive here in the UK but is good for in automotive/vehicle connectors to keep damp at bay... The dielectric gel comes in little sachets, the tubs are hard to obtain here
We used similar kind of gel to cover industrial inverter MIG welders' circuit boards to prevent conducting dust ingres and it wokred perfect. (without gel they lasted max 6 months) and with gel, no problem for years at all. cool stuff :D
The static build up around some high voltage components, particularly around selenium rectifiers would attract dust as well which would then absorb dampness/moisture in the air and cause shorting, workshops are full of all kinds of metal dust, smoke, general grime and ones with open garage doors often have rain blowing in as well or people using pressure washers nearby with the water mist blowing in and going through heat dispersal ventilation slots/grilles into equipment such as welders damaging circuit boards..
I use 'Liquid Electrical Tape' made by Starbrite on LED connectors. It's slow to dry but good for very small connections that could be exposed to moisture.
The starbrite stuff is from Florida in the USA, I have used it over there and it is hard to buy in the UK as it isn't really marketed here, the chemicals make it hard to buy via airmail. Starbrite make boat cleaner products and paints and various cleaning products some of which are sold here, mainly the boat cleaning liquids...
How well does it do on the interface between the gel and the wire insulation? Could water get in between there? It seemed to let go of the wires and connector block quite cleanly.
When the wire's been in there a while, removing it will leave a 'film' of the gel on the insulation, or in my experience it does. Seems to stick a bit better to pvc than xlpe (armoured cable cores) but i'd have no concern of moisture ingress on either
We've used this stuff on our sensors before but when there's a water leak it does sorta seem to creep up the wires compared to using the resin stuff that gets hard as a brick and really bonds with everything.
Another great video, that gel is very very expensive stuff, £30-£40 for a little box of that, the good thing is it is like a clear jelly easy to take back out.
I have used something very similar to that on a few occasions, not something I would always carry with me, but if I was doing an outside lighting job then I would get some from a local wholesaler to seal all the connection boxes, yes it is pricey but as John says it is much cheaper than having to go back in 6 months and repair things.
@@uK8cvPAq There's also a version that comes in standard 310ml cartridges and Thomas Nagy (UK youtube electrician) uses a crapload of that. So I guess for the right job it's worth it.
I use it loads in outdoor lighting applications. Swa joints to flex in buried wiska 308 boxes. Going back and making repairs isn’t cheap. If the light fails and you have to replace it, a resin based joint is a nightmare.
What are the thermal properties of this stuff? For example if you were to encapsulate a triac or power resistor or something that gets warm will it also thermally insulate the component and reduce heat dissipation?
Power transistors and large format resistors don't do well with encapsulation and overheat, power resistors are basically small radiating heaters that use the air gap round them to radiate heat out to convect away..
Hey John, I was wondering, what type of container-shelves are those as shown on the wall at the beginning of the video? I would love something like that
@@jwflame Sorry I'm late to respond I never got a notification until somebody else liked my comment, but anyway Thanks a ton ive gotta get me one for small components, they're pretty affordable too! I appreciate it!
When you pulled the magic gel from the lid it took the form of the lid did not seem to stick to it, neither did it stick to the connector. How good is it? if you submersed it in water for a period of time will it hold up? Will the water penetrate it over time?
They have a spraycan in my local wholesalers that you just spray the connections looks like theres nothing there but if you pour water over the connections it just sheets off kinda crazy still don't trust it though and just resort to magigel.
There are conformal coating sprays which are useful, there are also hydrophobic sprays but they don't give safe insulation and are also not suitable as they form very little barrier and are really a water repellant for fabric and garments etc..
another good video! im in on this for electrical insulation but, i wonder how well it will work with high power radio transmission where carbon in plastic insulators can absorb the power and set them on fire! RF is black magic to many people... i have had severe burn of RF without touching the antenna, it electrically/magnetically coupled to the metal tool that was in my hand and i was about 6ft away, the frequency in use was in the high frequency band around 28.300mhz with 100w of transmiter power
For microcontrollers and such it works a treat and with some of these compounds you can even encapsulate RF components like WiFi & Bluetooth modules. Thermal conductivity is generally very, very poor so your PCB artwork should double as a heat spreader if you have points of concern. I wouldn't advise its use around toasty power components unless you can sink practically everything out of the device package to spread it elsewhere. You may find the information at www.epicresins.com/ElectronicsPotting/ to be interesting. It's quite a rabbit hole of material science.
I just use silicone dielectric grease or silicone sealant. Works very well and available everywhere. The grease is a little price but the sealant is cheap. Never use Vaseline. Vaseline isn't the same as silicone and you will have a bad day in the future.
if you do use silicone sealant, you should use neutral cure (no doubt you do but it's worth mentioning). Acid cure silicone (acetoxy) will.... well it eats copper. Don't ask me how I know
Wow thank you I didn't know that. All our westher boxes say use silicone sealant and I been told to use it. I just kept using my silicone dielectric grease. Something about a cheap $1/3 oz tube of sealant bothered me when the a bottle of grease is $20/8oz. I didn't feel right using cheap sealant because I figured you get what you pay for... the sealant sounds fine for the boxes just not on the wired connections but I'llbe sticking with my grease. I use the grease even around fittings for my trailers. I also started buying stainless steel screws for my weather boxes. Had an issue with a screw rusted out making a $30 weather box useless.
concert610 If it smells of vinegar, don't use it. The neutral cure stuff is only a little bit more expensive. Go for the high flexibility type also sometimes labeled as "low modulus" of elasticity.
Good in principle but only good if the box is accessible from the top i.e. if wall mounted you would need to make a hole on the top of the box which kinda defeats the object of keeping moisture out.I didnt catch a mention but is the gel bio degradable?
I've got a trick for wall mounted boxes. Tap over the box with the lid off, leaving a gap at the top and making sure nothing at the level of that gap needs the gel covering (no terminals right up at the top edge) and pour it into the gap. Once set remove the tape, you may need to give it a top up if it leaks a bit while setting.
No, product lasts for ever regardless of being opened. Only activates when the two parts are mixed. Bottles don't actually have any seal other than the plastic screw caps.
Now we have to wait until it come to Aliexpress:) For cost effectiveness i still use sanitary silicone but i see good point of being able to pull device for repair.
Electronic Noob Blog most of the sanitary silicone is acetoxy, which releases acetic acid (vinegar) when it cures. That can corrode metals, so I only ever use the neutral cure type silicones.
You made a good point thank You, Personally I never had any problems in my "home" projects, everything I seal that way it's still working but You open my eyes to be aware of that danger.
Can you repeat the test with gelatin, normal strawberry jelly mix from the supermarket will do! Also normal silicone from the hardware store but apply it in stages as a 5mm thick coat takes 24 hours to dry.
@@Chrisallengallery Yes, that's why I suggested it, to see how bad it would be. Wax would be interesting, what about some cheap wood varnish too, but the drying time would be prohibitive?
The only thing is that it is not thermally conductive, so if components on the board are likely to get warm/hot, this product will trap the heat in and might cause overheating.
Hi, John, you seem to know a lot about electricity, so I have a weird question. NASA have this TETHER EXPERIMENT (STS-75), where they claim to produce power from a long cable which is cutting the magnetic flux lines of Earth. I think this is bullshit. They can't reach the other end of the wire with another wire, because they will have a non-inductive condition, where the 2 wires have the same potential. How would they get the electricity, if they have access to only one polarity of a high voltage DC wire. To me, this is like an electroscope where they are on one end of it. Sure, they would have some initial displacement current but where is this electricity flowing to?! This is like taking electricity from one terminal of a battery? I would be happy if someone explains this tether thing to me.
I remember the first time I used that stuff many years ago. I was expecting it to harden into a silicone like gel and thought something had gone wrong when it turned into a sticky jelly.
I was thinking of you watching this video hahaha!
@@xjsxj220same!
I'd like to hear your opinion on what's the best way to waterproof electronic. I like the gel stuff (especially the one-part silicone that never hardens, even softer than this two-part version) over epoxy, because I fear hard epoxy won't handle shrinking and expanding, due to the temperature changes, very well.
we use this all the time for all underground applications, WISKA 1ltr 2pt, not expensive considering it's properties 'non setting' commercial use, much better than hard set resin
The hard setting resin is a real issue when the circuit board set inside it is a one off or obsolete/no longer manufactured.
This is so handy. I work on a ship with external fittings such as speakers and deck lighting and I'm going to be trying this out.
Without your video I would have assumed this product was complete garbage. In my experience, anything with "magic" or "miracle" in the name or description is expensive crap.
Sigh. You've removed certainty from my life. Sometimes "magic" stuff works.
@PlebzOr Blapparapp yes sir
Great demo JW. Would have liked to see the whole encapsulated assembly submersed in a bucket of water for a few hours, then an insulation test to prove its integrity whilst moving the cables. We used to use a brown putty type of filler in metal conduit boxes years ago. Things have moved on since the 90s and these gels and epoxy resins don't seem to be getting cheaper... Hmmm.
I took apart a DRL module in a truck, a small circuit board designed to control daytime running lights. It had a gel compound that was obviously poured over the board like you did in the example. The board had overheated and one of the MOSFETs had failed. I wondered how this gel would dissipate heat, whether it would do as well as circulating air. In the field we use a lot of dielectric grease to exclude water, though it wouldn't work as well as this.
I get dielectric gel and plug and bulb grease from AGS in Muskegon in the USA, it is expensive here in the UK but is good for in automotive/vehicle connectors to keep damp at bay...
The dielectric gel comes in little sachets, the tubs are hard to obtain here
Gel dissipates heat better than stagnant air at least
We used similar kind of gel to cover industrial inverter MIG welders' circuit boards to prevent conducting dust ingres and it wokred perfect. (without gel they lasted max 6 months) and with gel, no problem for years at all. cool stuff :D
The static build up around some high voltage components, particularly around selenium rectifiers would attract dust as well which would then absorb dampness/moisture in the air and cause shorting, workshops are full of all kinds of metal dust, smoke, general grime and ones with open garage doors often have rain blowing in as well or people using pressure washers nearby with the water mist blowing in and going through heat dispersal ventilation slots/grilles into equipment such as welders damaging circuit boards..
I use this stuff all the time for garden lighting and using SWA to flex
“Of course it’s not magic really” 😂. This guys cracks me up
And I was thinking it's made from unicorn tears and phoenix urine!
I believe that photoinduction has performed a electrical test on a balistic gel, but 1KV and > 1Gohm very good indeed.
A non permanent potting compound.
Dose it get runnier when it’s hot?
I use 'Liquid Electrical Tape' made by Starbrite on LED connectors. It's slow to dry but good for very small connections that could be exposed to moisture.
The starbrite stuff is from Florida in the USA, I have used it over there and it is hard to buy in the UK as it isn't really marketed here, the chemicals make it hard to buy via airmail.
Starbrite make boat cleaner products and paints and various cleaning products some of which are sold here, mainly the boat cleaning liquids...
Great, now I want to gel everything in my house. But I have a question, what happens when it gets hot?
How well does it do on the interface between the gel and the wire insulation? Could water get in between there? It seemed to let go of the wires and connector block quite cleanly.
When the wire's been in there a while, removing it will leave a 'film' of the gel on the insulation, or in my experience it does. Seems to stick a bit better to pvc than xlpe (armoured cable cores) but i'd have no concern of moisture ingress on either
Does it expand and contract with temperature changes?
We've used this stuff on our sensors before but when there's a water leak it does sorta seem to creep up the wires compared to using the resin stuff that gets hard as a brick and really bonds with everything.
how well does the gel burn?
Surprisingly well. Demonstrated in a video next week.
You can use also dielectric silicone grease 😊
John, great video. How does this do under a high load? If the connections or wire gets hot?
Another great video, that gel is very very expensive stuff, £30-£40 for a little box of that, the good thing is it is like a clear jelly easy to take back out.
That is expensive, who's the target customer? Can't imagine the average electrician keeping bottles of this in the van for that price.
I have used something very similar to that on a few occasions, not something I would always carry with me, but if I was doing an outside lighting job then I would get some from a local wholesaler to seal all the connection boxes, yes it is pricey but as John says it is much cheaper than having to go back in 6 months and repair things.
The pack shown in the video is about £15.
@@uK8cvPAq There's also a version that comes in standard 310ml cartridges and Thomas Nagy (UK youtube electrician) uses a crapload of that. So I guess for the right job it's worth it.
I use it loads in outdoor lighting applications. Swa joints to flex in buried wiska 308 boxes. Going back and making repairs isn’t cheap. If the light fails and you have to replace it, a resin based joint is a nightmare.
What are the thermal properties of this stuff? For example if you were to encapsulate a triac or power resistor or something that gets warm will it also thermally insulate the component and reduce heat dissipation?
Power transistors and large format resistors don't do well with encapsulation and overheat, power resistors are basically small radiating heaters that use the air gap round them to radiate heat out to convect away..
I have a Polaris VRX IQ+ robot pool cleaner running in my saltwater pool. Could I use this to waterproof the motorblock connectors?
Hey John, I was wondering, what type of container-shelves are those as shown on the wall at the beginning of the video? I would love something like that
Raaco 126762, available from CPC, cpc.farnell.com/raaco/126762/cabinet-organiser-44-compartment/dp/SG32824
@@jwflame Sorry I'm late to respond I never got a notification until somebody else liked my comment, but anyway Thanks a ton ive gotta get me one for small components, they're pretty affordable too!
I appreciate it!
What happens if you heat it up after it's set.....just wondering if it becomes any more flowable again?
Where could you buy this kind of stuff
When you pulled the magic gel from the lid it took the form of the lid did not seem to stick to it, neither did it stick to the connector. How good is it? if you submersed it in water for a period of time will it hold up? Will the water penetrate it over time?
They have a spraycan in my local wholesalers that you just spray the connections looks like theres nothing there but if you pour water over the connections it just sheets off kinda crazy still don't trust it though and just resort to magigel.
There are conformal coating sprays which are useful, there are also hydrophobic sprays but they don't give safe insulation and are also not suitable as they form very little barrier and are really a water repellant for fabric and garments etc..
another good video!
im in on this for electrical insulation but, i wonder how well it will work with high power radio transmission where carbon in plastic insulators can absorb the power and set them on fire!
RF is black magic to many people... i have had severe burn of RF without touching the antenna, it electrically/magnetically coupled to the metal tool that was in my hand and i was about 6ft away, the frequency in use was in the high frequency band around 28.300mhz with 100w of transmiter power
Just like an inductive heater!
I love it. Need something like this in the US
Is it only for connectors, or could you pot a PCB with it? How is its thermal conductivity?
For microcontrollers and such it works a treat and with some of these compounds you can even encapsulate RF components like WiFi & Bluetooth modules.
Thermal conductivity is generally very, very poor so your PCB artwork should double as a heat spreader if you have points of concern.
I wouldn't advise its use around toasty power components unless you can sink practically everything out of the device package to spread it elsewhere.
You may find the information at www.epicresins.com/ElectronicsPotting/ to be interesting. It's quite a rabbit hole of material science.
Have used it for pcbs, is fine for most low voltage low power
I just use silicone dielectric grease or silicone sealant. Works very well and available everywhere. The grease is a little price but the sealant is cheap. Never use Vaseline. Vaseline isn't the same as silicone and you will have a bad day in the future.
if you do use silicone sealant, you should use neutral cure (no doubt you do but it's worth mentioning). Acid cure silicone (acetoxy) will.... well it eats copper. Don't ask me how I know
Wow thank you I didn't know that. All our westher boxes say use silicone sealant and I been told to use it. I just kept using my silicone dielectric grease. Something about a cheap $1/3 oz tube of sealant bothered me when the a bottle of grease is $20/8oz. I didn't feel right using cheap sealant because I figured you get what you pay for... the sealant sounds fine for the boxes just not on the wired connections but I'llbe sticking with my grease. I use the grease even around fittings for my trailers. I also started buying stainless steel screws for my weather boxes. Had an issue with a screw rusted out making a $30 weather box useless.
concert610 If it smells of vinegar, don't use it. The neutral cure stuff is only a little bit more expensive. Go for the high flexibility type also sometimes labeled as "low modulus" of elasticity.
@@Tim_Small I haven't heard of this either. Thank you. I will start reading labels more carefully. I thought silicone was all the same.
Ok, please tell me why phones and electric watches internal are not coated with this to make them fully water proof?
Good in principle but only good if the box is accessible from the top i.e. if wall mounted you would need to make a hole on the top of the box which kinda defeats the object of keeping moisture out.I didnt catch a mention but is the gel bio degradable?
I've got a trick for wall mounted boxes. Tap over the box with the lid off, leaving a gap at the top and making sure nothing at the level of that gap needs the gel covering (no terminals right up at the top edge) and pour it into the gap. Once set remove the tape, you may need to give it a top up if it leaks a bit while setting.
Looks like silicone.
MSDS:
COMPOSITION / INFORMATION ON INGREDIENTS
Chemical characteristics: product based on polyorganosiloxanes and inert
fillers
Once the two bottles are opened, do they go "off" because the seal has been breached?
No, product lasts for ever regardless of being opened. Only activates when the two parts are mixed.
Bottles don't actually have any seal other than the plastic screw caps.
They seem very large bottles considering what is actually in them
Bottles are full when new, some of these have already been used.
Now we have to wait until it come to Aliexpress:)
For cost effectiveness i still use sanitary silicone but i see good point of being able to pull device for repair.
Electronic Noob Blog most of the sanitary silicone is acetoxy, which releases acetic acid (vinegar) when it cures. That can corrode metals, so I only ever use the neutral cure type silicones.
You made a good point thank You, Personally I never had any problems in my "home" projects, everything I seal that way it's still working but You open my eyes to be aware of that danger.
Can you repeat the test with gelatin, normal strawberry jelly mix from the supermarket will do! Also normal silicone from the hardware store but apply it in stages as a 5mm thick coat takes 24 hours to dry.
Jelly is mostly water so I wouldn't think it is insulating. I'd like to see candle wax though. That would be the cheapest option.
@@Chrisallengallery Yes, that's why I suggested it, to see how bad it would be. Wax would be interesting, what about some cheap wood varnish too, but the drying time would be prohibitive?
# paraffin candle wax is probably fine in many conditions, but bit of a risk of it melting out on a hot day?
Orange. instagram.com/p/BqOGrI0lZBe/
Is it possible to make a "burn test" like on crapy china stuff? :D
can we see this under test when still wet ???
Is it UV resistant (sunlight)?
Doesn't state either way, but it's intended for use inside junction boxes where there is no light.
@Darren Tipple not necessarily. I was thinking for sealing solar panels on garden lights.
Thanks for the reply JW.
Can you use it on live current?
Just heard vid, OK on live current which is good
I think the words you may have been looking for are viscous and viscosity.
Eh, that stuff are so expensive, I'd just melt candle wax to do insulation for my hobby things if I want to bury it underground
and it's self immolating!
Just use 5 min epoxy or hot glue if you're in a real hurry.
@@otm646 or acrylic coating (like nail polish). Need a couple of coats but typically sets quickly and is easy to apply
Great Christmas idea for people who do not want to go to Smyth's Toyshop
Clever, very useful and safe.
Any issues pouring this over a circuit board?
The only thing is that it is not thermally conductive, so if components on the board are likely to get warm/hot, this product will trap the heat in and might cause overheating.
Also good for a diy breast implants
Handy tip: Make sure you use a funnel
Hi, John, you seem to know a lot about electricity, so I have a weird question. NASA have this TETHER EXPERIMENT (STS-75), where they claim to produce power from a long cable which is cutting the magnetic flux lines of Earth. I think this is bullshit. They can't reach the other end of the wire with another wire, because they will have a non-inductive condition, where the 2 wires have the same potential. How would they get the electricity, if they have access to only one polarity of a high voltage DC wire. To me, this is like an electroscope where they are on one end of it. Sure, they would have some initial displacement current but where is this electricity flowing to?! This is like taking electricity from one terminal of a battery? I would be happy if someone explains this tether thing to me.
Dont get it on your clothes it stains af
yay now i can make my bb8 water proof
5.10 for test
This is just another junk for shitty websites 😤😓. If you can't reuse it then this is no more then junk.
Yummy! J-E-L-L-O!
You were enjoying pulling it apart with your fingers weren't you hahaha