On Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:47:10 -0500, Smarty wrote:

On 2/8/2011 1:25 AM, Prof Wonmug wrote:
We have a very old appliance that has an electrical cord with no
strain relief. The cord comes out of a square hole in the back. I have
replaced the original cord with one that it more heavy-duty, but it
still eventually shorts out. I'm going to go get a piece of stiff
tubing about 1" long that will fit into the hole and run the cord
through that. Is there a better idea?

There are commercially available strain reliefs which can be found on
the Internet, depending on the cord size, the cut-out hole size, and the
shape of the cut-out. See, as a single example:

http://www.parts-express.com/wizards...gag=2243855113

When I did a search, the results were all way too big, like these:

http://www.alliedelec.com/search/pro...px?SKU=2330976

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/str...ecatalog/N-8fq

http://www.drillspot.com/products/43...ight_Mesh_Grip

The opening in the housing is just barely larger than the cord and had
no fitting whatsoever right now. That's why I was thinking rubber
tubing that I could squeeze into the opening.