Hello friends! Today we’d like to fixate your attention on a group of new products – introducing the Cable Repair Kit, WetLink Thixotropic 80A Potting Compound, and their related components!
The Cable Repair Kit
The Cable Repair Kit has all of the materials necessary to temporarily repair damaged cable, tether, and other connections. It contains two specialized materials: Coax Seal and Silicone Tape. The Coax Seal is a hand moldable, non-toxic, non-conductive plastic that adheres to most surfaces and the silicone tape is a UV resistant and flexible tape that fuses only to itself. When used in a repair the coax seal forms a watertight barrier and the silicone tape is used to protect it.
The kit also contains acetone wipes to help clean and prepare the cable surface for the best possible adhesion. With these tools in hand a day of diving doesn’t have to be called off because of a damaged cable, just perform a field repair and keep on keepin’ on 😉 All of these components are also sold separately, so you can refill your kit as needed!
WetLink Thixotropic 80A Potting Compound (USA ONLY)
The Wetlink Thixotropic 80A Potting Compound has excellent adhesion to a wide range of materials, including our anodized aluminum penetrators and polyurethane cable jackets. This, combined with a high degree of flexibility and chemical resistance, makes it the ideal compound to reliably seal penetrators and retain excellent performance over time. A high degree of thixotropy, or shear thinning property, allows it to stay where applied and minimizes dripping while still being easy to dispense and reduces bubbles.
For optimum dispensing and application, it is recommended to use with our Potting Cartridge Dispenser, Mixing Tips, and Acetone Cable Preparation Wipes. Sorry to our friends outside of the US, we can only ship this epoxy domestically due to restrictions, but we’re working on a solution!
Potting Tutorial
In conjunction with this release, we’ve also created a potting tutorial, starring our Engineering Technician, Joe! The one-step potting process shown in this video works best with the Wetlink Potting Compound and tools shown here, but remember that the cable penetrators can be used with other types of epoxies and adhesives as well. Check it out!
I just noticed the formulation house in the MSDS. Reltek LLC. I have been using them for eons now to come up with custom formulation solutions for some really exotic issues. They are a rock solid company and I have had nothing but great experience with their products … custom or commercial.
Was the Wetlink Thixotropic 80A discontinued? The link seems broken, and I cannot find the product on the website. If so, I thought it was a good product and was a better solution for potting than the Loctite which was prone to cracking (likely some amount of user error…) Could anyone shed some light on why it was discontinued and what does BlueRobotics now recommend for potting solution?
Thanks in advance
Hi @flamma,
The short answer is that the epoxy did not work reliably enough to seal our penetrators. Especially in the past two years, we have had increasing customer reports of leaking and delaminated penetrators. You can find more information with a direct response from Rusty on this topic here:
The good news is that we are extremely close to releasing our new penetrator solution, and should be making an announcement in the next few weeks!
If you absolutely need some more of the Wetlink Thixotropic 80A epoxy, the equivalent product is Reltek B-45TH.
-Adam