Cable strain relief grommet needed

I thought I should give these old soldering irons a birthday (especially as I just used the one which doesn’t have the lead cut off to repair a tap spout which would have cost me £70 to replace!). They were inherited from my dad. I was thinking new rubber cables, but the strain relief grommets are well perished. I was thinking it would be simple enough to find replacement grommets but I've just spent 30 minutes or so and I can't find anything suitable. I guess the originals are intended for a 1/2 inch hole but 12mm would be fine. I've tried Ebay, Farnell, RS and general searching on the web. Thegrommetcompany have the perfect thing but only in packs of 50 - what am I going to do with the other 48??



Any ideas where to look or how to improvise a substitute? I guess I could turn up some kind of adapter from derlin to use a slightly smaller grommet but it needs to be big enough to take the 3 core rubber insulated cable.

 

3D printing would be perfect but you need a designer. I cant design but I can print..lol

 

Can you adapt a skin top fitting to mount in there somehow?

 

You could send a couple of grommets my way, I've got an identical iron (the big one) with exactly the same problem.

 

Great - just need another 47 volunteers!!

 

Not sure I follow your thinking - 'skin top'??

 

I've a couple of 65W Solons, so I'd take a couple

 

Nothing in the Hellerman range

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/607242.pdf

 

It might be worth trying an appliance repair shop. I recall seeing strain relief grommets similar to that on old clothes irons. The Morphy Richards Senior model springs to mind.

 

Cable gland
This sort of thing


I have got some that might be around 12mm thread.
Glue the threaded bit in the **** end of it.
You might be able to tap out the hole where the grommet went but I think they are wooden handles or bakelite or something else that's probably not going to tap very well.

 

HV2107 might just do it - when I look back at the Farnell site they say mounting hole 10mm (which is why I dismissed it) but the data sheet you linked says 11.5mm, which is probably close enough.

Thank You.

 

If you cant find the grom PM me your add & I will send you a couple of ones I used on my fathers Remploy iron the tail is short about 25mm 350Th hole, so I extended grom with heat shrink///////had been ok for 2 years Can spare 1 or 2

 

Thanks all, for the suggestions and offers - I will give the Hellerman HV2107 a try and see how that goes.

 

A chunky flex is going to expand it a tad.

Bob

 

You can always build the flex up with heat shrink to stretch the grommet out a bit

 

Use one from a power tool. Buy as a spare if necessary.

E.g.

https://www.powertoolspares.com/makita/ga4530.m/ga4530/spares

Part number 47. £1.20 plus postage plus VAT.

Run over to 8ob's place to see if the Hitachi is still in the skip.

 

Good idea - you reminded me that I have an old Makita drill in the attic (kept for spares since it was replaced with the same model) - I dug it out but unfortunately the grommet is way too big. I think the difference is that the drill has a separate cable clamp and then a 'loose' strain relief grommet just to ease the flexing of the cable where it comes out of the tool. In the case of my ancient soldering irons the grommet also serves as the cable clamp.

 

Glue the cable into the grommet with contact adhesive. If there is room, use a tight cable tie where the cable exits the grommet inside the iron. Make a wall knot with the three cores before connecting to the terminals.

 

sugru is what you need
form your own cable strain relief

 

Well, I asked thegrommetcompany for a few samples - didn't really expect anything but they turned up this afternoon so both of my irons now have new plugs and leads fitted - lovely job.

Thanks for all the suggestions - that sugru looks interesting.