Your reputation precedes you. Keeping the electricity in the wire is your main job. Your connections need to withstand extreme conditions. You may be working in a manhole one day, on a manlift the next. Keep your toolkit stocked with tapes which are engineered for swift application and durability. Scotch® Electrical Tapes work alone or in tandem in harsh environments.
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Electricians may not be first responders—but you are ‘First Protectors.’ To keep our world running you need to face some harsh conditions and wiggle into some tight spaces–part physics professor, part craftsman, part acrobat. If you’re reading this paragraph, it’s because an electrician like you was on the job. We’re here to keep you well equipped, and that means having the right tape on hand and knowing when, how and where to apply it.
Environmental contaminants can be introduced at any point during a job. Dust, dirt, chemicals and water can all compromise a splice. Protect against corrosion with best practice tape application techniques. This begins with product selection.
Refrigeration units and boiler rooms put different stresses on electrical connections. Cold and hot climates do the same. Our premium tapes are designed to give exemplary performance in extreme temperatures.
Rodents will chew it; forklifts will stab it; gravel will abrade it; and motor vibrations will wear it down. It seems like everything is determined to ruin your cable. Keeping conductors safe from intrusion involves good technique and that means using quality tape.
When you can’t afford to fail, your tape should not be at fault. Whether you’re keeping the hospital ICU running, data centers online, or making sure the milk is cold at the corner store; select our premium tapes.
In harsh environments, select Scotch® Premium Electrical Tapes from 3M.
If you’re a third-generation electrician, there’s a good chance your Granddaddy used Scotch® 33+ Vinyl Electrical Tape. Six decades have passed and Scotch® Super 33+™ Vinyl Electrical Tape is now the rugged standard. As industrial power demands increased, the engineers at 3M continued to innovate, developing new materials to help keep out contaminants. Dirt, debris, grease, chemicals and even water can contaminate your tape job and cause air pockets or problems with adhesion. Over time, these problems may become channels for moisture and are vulnerable if corrosive chemicals are spilled on the splice.
The heat is on. And so is the cold. Blizzards, cold rooms, boilers, deserts, the oceanside and even the company’s front lawn can wreak havoc on electrical installations. Most people don’t think of the green space outside the factory as an extreme environment. Fertilizer seeping into underground electrical runs can be just as corrosive as the salty spray at a shipyard.
Conduit piping inside a large plant can be exposed to steam and condensation, or sparks, open flames and heat. When there’s constant exposure to heat—such as a boiler room—tape can become brittle, crack, and compromise the jacket, providing a path to corrosion.
For electrical installations where moisture is the main concern, not just any tape will do. Sometimes the job calls for more than just premium vinyl electrical tapes. 3M offers several solutions to help ensure you get the results you need no matter the job. Rubber tapes are a great option for helping to seal out moisture when you’re working on jobs with voltage over 600V. However, mastic tapes combined with a rubber insulator may be your best defense and are recommended for subterranean and suspended high voltage applications. Mastics are rated up to 600V so for high voltage applications they must be coupled with a primary rubber insulator. Both mastic and rubber tapes protect against alkalis and acids which become airborne or that seep into subterranean installations.
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You splice your motor leads. The connection is tight—you’ve made the perfect spiral wrap. You snap the lid of the motor box; energize the circuit. You switch on the machine and the production line comes back to life. And then the motor box begins to shake, violently! Extreme vibrations pull at a splice over time and work environments can be rough and destructive to your cables. For that kind of abuse, we’ve developed tapes that insulate, protect and persist.
In most instances an electrical fault stops at the breaker box. The failsafe in the system works as designed. But sometimes there are electrical shorts that shut down production lines, leaving personnel idly standing by. Far worse are electrical catastrophes that cause cascading failures, explosions and loss of life. An electrician needs to be focused. You need to be ready to go in, all neurons firing. You need to do your job safely so at the end of the day you can go home in as good of shape as you came. Your family counts on that. And the public counts on you.
Not all electrical installations are created equal. There are some locations which are simply hard to reach. Oil derricks, stadium light poles, wireless cellular towers, ocean liner engine rooms and mineshafts are just a few. There are other situations where the down time caused by electric failures may cause a significant loss of revenue. If you’re an electrician who services a hospital you know how critical your work is to patient care. Every situation calls for quality craftsmanship but these critical jobs require nothing less than top of the line supplies. If you’re on a scheduled maintenance routine, you’ll want your splices to exceed this performance regimen. If you’re making a critical repair after a storm, you want that mend to hold tight when the next one rolls in. These jobs – and your safety – call for using the quality materials. Premium quality vinyl, mastic and rubber tapes help make sure you have the right tools so the job is done the right way, and help you get home safe.
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At 3M, we’re scientists – and we take pride in using science to drive innovation. We approach our work with rigor. We design our electrical tape products to withstand harsh environments both inside and out. To get more insight into how our products help you do your critical job, sign up now for ‘Power Ups.’
Our dedicated technical team is here to help you approach your next project with confidence. Get in-depth product information, valuable application guidance, training options and more.