Gooey Wires Part 2

[SavannahLion]

Thought I'd share.

Three years ago, I wrote about my XEGS wires being damaged from the polystyrene packaging. At the time I said that I never saw conductive wires turn to goo. Just turn dry and crack.

That is now wrong. I had a wire not only turn to goo, but just melt into liquid.

The wire is a single conductor coiled wire from a grounding strap that I use when soldering sensitive components. Generally, I don't use it because well... I generally don't solder sensitive components onto circuit boards. And when I do, I have another grounding method. Anyways, this time I was going to put together a new AVR board so I went looking for my grounding strap. I'm usually the kind of guy that leaves my tools where I last used them. In the truck, garage, under the kitchen sink whatever. Not sure why I do that. Last place I used my grounding strap was on my old server and lo and behold there it still was. Amongst my rats nest and under the enormous pile of crap my wife likes to leave on any horizontal surface that belongs to me. Somewhere in there is my router, still chugging along after all these years.   

But I digress, all the weird blue stuff is just liquid, with the consistency somewhere between maple syrup and honey. Cleaned up beautifully with Denatured Alcohol. I didn't dare use anything stronger because some of the goo got on a couple of my suspended projects and I didn't want to ruin the plastics.

If you look carefully, you'll notice that the wire is in two pieces, This was a kink in the wire that simply just liquified and fell apart. Kind of disconcerting that the electrical connection was broken. There are also numerous bare spots along the wire. The jacket at these places apparently cracked into pieces and simply liquified wherever the pieces lay. The table top is some sort of plastic and there are bunches of other wires which didn't suffer the same fate. All I can guess is that the table top is made with some kind of fire retardant that is leeching out and liquified the plastic. Because of this, I am considering returning to using a tempered glass top. I took it off because it was larger than the table and presented a hazard to the little ones because of the sharp corners.

[SavannahLion]

That's interesting. In the photos, the liquid has a definite green tint. However, when I look at it with my eyeballs, it has more blue than green. I think it's called Aqua?

[lilshawn]

you will find quite often that black plastics are just dyed a really dark color (blue/brown/red) they just put a little bit in to make light blue...more for dark blue....and LOTS for black.

take some black plastics out in the sun and have a good look, you'll find they are just dark tints.

as for the liquification, it could be anything. even outgasing of the plastic itself can cause it to just randomly break down. UV protectants in the plastics. literally anything. once it starts, it just runs away.

[SavannahLion]

you will find quite often that black plastics are just dyed a really dark color (blue/brown/red) they just put a little bit in to make light blue...more for dark blue....and LOTS for black.

take some black plastics out in the sun and have a good look, you'll find they are just dark tints.

Yeah, I know. I played with enough plastics to figure that out. I was just commenting that the photos show the stuff as green when my eyes see it as having much more blue.

as for the liquification, it could be anything. even outgasing of the plastic itself can cause it to just randomly break down. UV protectants in the plastics. literally anything. once it starts, it just runs away.

Since the last time this happened, I did a lot of research into it. The problem, as I see it, is the plastics industry tends not to reveal exactly what goes into their plastics. A mix of trade secrets and there really isn't any legal requirement for them to do so anyways. So most of us outside of the industry seem to be doing a lot of guessing and speculating. But you're right and I mentioned it in the previous thread,  the plastic itself isn't to blame, but the additives. Things like fire retardant (there's a nice lawsuit or two in California about those particular additives. There's a push to remove the fire retardant from things like clothing, bedding, furniture because of the outgassing problem.), stabilizers or the plasticizers.

I just wish more research was done into ensuring long term stability of certain plastics or, if the plastic does start to break down, break down in a more controlled manner (ie something more desirable that toxic dust). I don't necessarily like the biodegradable "plastics" like the stuff derived from GMO soy beans (or was it GMO corn? I forget now) because I see them as more of a "short" term solution rather than long term.