alt Hacker NewsJust beware that an awful lot of "silicone" cabling coming from China is actually overplasticized PVC, particular cabling used in instrument probes. It feels like silicone until it starts getting stiff while at the same time outgassing plasticizer like crazy, or you touch it with a soldering iron or similar. I would expect most or even all of the cat-ran-across-the-keyboard Amazon brands to be overplasticized PVC, not silicone (hint: Use the Knockoff plugin for Chromefox, https://github.com/Shpigford/knockoff, which will warn you for stuff that's sold on Temu West, aka.Amazon, it's warning on almost all of the pseudo-brands listed in the article).
I've also run into way too much cabling that's CCA or even CCS. Garbage on the outside, garbage on the inside.
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Is there a way to test a cable to see if it's PVC and not silicone?
And the plasticizers (DEHP primarily) are really nasty, easily slough off onto your skin where they are absorbed. Don't ever put plastic cable in your mouth, or that of a child
100%, this is unfortunately what I've found, the vast majority of cables I've purchased so far are not genuine silicone
You used to be able to buy silicone extension cords. Now it's all the new low temp plasticized PVC.
> hint: Use the Knockoff plugin for Chromefox, https://github.com/Shpigford/knockoff
le me: see README, spot slop tells, scroll to the files, see CLAUDE.md
Yeah I'd love to see a stopslop extension for Github, warning me if the usual suspects of slop bullshit are present.
"…actually overplasticized PVC,"
Despite the point in my comment about power cable extensions coverings becoming hard through the lack of plasticizers, I confirm your point about overplasticized PVC in instrument cables.
I have a lot of instrument leads that I thought were silicone only to find that after a year or so they've gone hard. So much so that new unpacked ones can no longer be easily straightened (the kinks remain unless one heats the cable up and then straightens them).
Despite availability issues,the problem is trying to determine what's real silicone and what's not.