Will Hot Glue insulate? Is it conductive?

[Patriot]

Will hot glue insulate?

I have a couple of 6-pin connectors that will have one side of it exposed inside my box. Basically, the side where the wire leads solder to the little pins. Anyway, I'm worried about something hitting them, and damaging them.

So, I thought coating the base of the connector, in between all the pins, would help make it stronger. Also, to keep moisture out.

I am also worried about the glue being conductive between the pins, thus shorting them out.

Will this work?

 

[Ypedal]

been there done that.. all the hot glue i have ever used was non-conductive !! :wink:

bms wires.. bms board connections.. the back of anderson powerpoles.. etc etc etc...

 

[Jay64]

I was thinking something along the lines of this when I did my first sportbike build. The question I had was how well would the hot glue hold up if you were putting it on something that got hot. I mean, isn't that how it gets liquid in the first place? I was trying to hot glue a resistor down, but was told that the resistor could get really hot. Would that then re-melt the glue? (sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread, but the answer might make a difference to you too.)

 

[Anonymous]

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[Ypedal]

there are places you would want to avoid .. ie: resistors .. in this example coating them in hot glue could make them fail as it would retain the heat and not allow them to cool down ( depends on how hot they get .. )

Waterproofing, stopping squeaks and rattles from gaps in parts.. securing multi-pin connectors etc.. works awsome.

there are also different grades of hot glue.. i have the cheap dollar store stuff and the better Canadian Tire brand General , then the next step stronger, and the industrial stuff is insane...(needs bigger wattage gun to melt it )

 

[Jay64]

ha ha, yeah, I have the dollar store stuff too. :lol: I actually aquired it from my girlfriend's mom.

 

[Mr. Mik]

Hot glue works very well if used appropriately.

But it does not reall glue very well. It's adhesive strength is weak and the connections can come off at any time if they are just flat glue-blobs.

But if you form the hot glue into bracket shapes that grip the objects so they cannot fall out, then it lasts excellently.

You can pot electronics with it, but you can also remove it again.

It would be nice to have a hot-glue-sucker for the removal process.

Some examples:

This relay will be protected by hot glue in many ways:



The relay housing has a cage around the edges to protect against bumps and cracking, but allowing heat transfer through the side walls. The soldered connections and diode are completely enclosed, protecting against mechanical damage, shorts, vibration and water. Similar for the connectors.
The piece of heat-shrink around the cables is also filled with hot glue, it protects 2 solder connections (with individual heat shrink) from rubbing against each other and wearing through over the (rattling) years in an EV. The heat shrink can be filled with hot glue, it then contracts and squishes the excess out.


.................................................................................................................................................

This LED display has survived over half a year on the dashboard of the Vectux. Shown below is the back of it, with the hot glue cover opened up again to re-solder the jumper for the decimal point. It worked a treat and has not leaked/let water in. But it falls off every now and then, because it is hot-glued to a relatively flat surface.


Any reworking of the hot glue is possible and added hot glue bonds perfectly with the already present stuff by re-melting it on contact.