On 4/29/2015 1:53 PM, John-Del wrote:
On Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 3:21:02 PM UTC-4, Cydrome Leader wrote:
mike wrote:
On 4/29/2015 4:40 AM, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
En el art?culo , mike
escribi?:

So, Is there a glue that works well holding wall
warts back together and has a long shelf life?

Superglue (cyanoacrylate) works well for me, but don't buy the cheap
stuff.
Superglue scares me for something that can electrocute me.
Works great when it sticks, but doesn't stick well to some plastics.
When I'm fumbling around in the dark under the desk, I really, really
want the wall wart to come out in one piece.

Getting the wall-wart apart neatly is an art form in itself. I use a
bench vice (with protectors if the vice jaws are serrated) and try the
wall wart in various positions, tightening the vice to probe for the
weakest part of the joint. Once you get the seam separated at one
point, the rest is easy to gently crack open.

I've never had much luck with that. End up tearing the plastic
instead of separating the joint.
I use a wood chisel to whack the seam sharply. Splits nicely, but
does break a lot of the overlapping plastic. With the plumbing pipe
glue, I can get it back together with reasonable aesthetics.

It takes time, but I read on a newgroup you can hold the power supply and
just beat on it with a hammer all around the edges over and over again and
it will split open, like a nut.

It does work. I told the power supply in fluffy glove and whack at it with
a small hammer. All the little whacks crack the welds inside. Everything
pieces together nicely with no stretched or deformed parts like you get if
you chisel, cut or pry thing thing open. The tough things like laptop
power supplies will open up this way if you have several minutes.

Some come apart easily, and some will never come apart without a lot of effort. Those that appear to be really welded together are the ones I'll just zip down with a Dremel and cut-off wheel (making sure to not go too deep).

If fixed, I'll either run some solvent in the seam if it came apart cleanly, or stuff it with RTV and rubber band it for 24 hours. BTW, you can make a nice RTV seam by wetting your finger with oil (or spit) and wipe it down to a smooth shiny fill.


RTV has the same shelf life problem. And it's GAWD awful expensive.
All the stuff I've found at reasonable prices or at the hardware store
exude acetic acid.