Should I be worried about shorts?

[olds1959special]

I'm using bare wire to connect to my amp and when I spliced the wire I accidentally cut into the insulation of the wires a little. Should I be concerned about wires touching causing a short? I covered everything up with heat shrink tubing, but unfortunately may not have individually wrapped each section I cut into. I am not really concerned, because the insulation did not come off the wires, it just got little cuts on the sides, not entirely through the whole thing, so I'm thinking that it will remain effective at insulating the wires from each other, and I shouldn't be concerned?

 

[kemmler3D]

Looks fine to me, if copper touches copper, you'll get a short and that's not good, but the copper does need to actually touch.

 

[olds1959special]

Looks fine to me, if copper touches copper, you'll get a short and that's not good, but the copper does need to actually touch.

Yes, the copper would not touch unless the insulation was cut through completely and removed enough off the wire on both sides to allow them to rub together when moved, but I'm not in that situation. I inspected all the wires and only noticed semi cuts through one or both of the wires on a couple pairs. The picture just shows where I covered it up with heat shrink tubing. Underneath is the ugliness.

It's pretty hard to remove that outer jacket without cutting into the wires.

 

[olds1959special]

I will try to explain further. The speaker cable has a red and black wire and and outer covering that is white. After I cut the cable, I had to remove a small length of the white covering to access the wires underneath. When doing so, I cut into the insulation of the red and black wires. There are four pairs of cables, and in the case of one pair, I cut into both wires a little. I did try to fix with heat shrink tubing but unfortunately would have had to have trimmed down the white jacket some more to access the spots where the cuts happened and didn't do that so my heat shrink tubing is pretty much just cosmetic.

 

[GGroch]

I will try to explain further.....

Many of us use this kind of speaker wire, and are familiar with how easy it is to cut through the black/red insulation when trying to remove the white outer insulated covering.

It's pretty hard to remove that outer jacket without cutting into the wires

If you use wire cutters or a knife in normal fashion it is difficult to safely remove the outer jacket without nicking the equally fragile inner insulation.
I find that using sharp pointed scissors to clip the outer jacket back from the end works well without risk to the red/black wires. I have also used a pointed knife from the end with its blade pointed upwards (away from the red/black) and that works well. Once you start the cut, the white layer is often easy to split and pull back.

If you mistakenly cut the red/black internal wires (this does not show in your photos) then it is possible they will short, as Kemmler said. If it does not touch initially, it is possible it would after time if the cables are moved a lot.

There is no way to answer definitively what will happen in the future. But, since the issue is bothersome enough to you to create a thread, you should fix it I think. If this system were mine, I would fix it for peace of mind. The heat shrink looks nice but is an extra step that is not necessary.

 

[olds1959special]

Many of us use this kind of speaker wire, and are familiar with how easy it is to cut through the black/red insulation when trying to remove the white outer insulated covering.

If you use wire cutters or a knife in normal fashion it is difficult to safely remove the outer jacket without nicking the equally fragile inner insulation.
I find that using sharp pointed scissors to clip the outer jacket back from the end works well without risk to the red/black wires. I have also used a pointed knife from the end with its blade pointed upwards (away from the red/black) and that works well. Once you start the cut, the white layer is often easy to split and pull back.

If you mistakenly cut the red/black internal wires (this does not show in your photos) then it is possible they will short, as Kemmler said. If it does not touch initially, it is possible it would after time if the cables are moved a lot.

There is no way to answer definitively what will happen in the future. But, since the issue is bothersome enough to you to create a thread, you should fix it I think. If this system were mine, I would fix it for peace of mind. The heat shrink looks nice but is an extra step that is not necessary.

I inspected the wires. It appears I didn't actually nick the wires themselves, just the outer red and black insulation. I sliced into the sides of the insulation. Since the insulation was partially not fully cut I don’t see how it can slide off so I don't really see how the wires would touch, even if the cables move around over time.

 

[GGroch]

As previously stated, if you are confident the wires won't touch, then there will be no shorts.

In my experience, the inner red/black insulation on this kind of wire is designed to cut/separate easily to make for fast stripping. The white outer layer is more durable like the insulation on normal speaker wire not designed for in wall use.

Perhaps I am more worried about shorts than most because I am an old man with very pale legs

 

[egellings]

I'm using bare wire to connect to my amp and when I spliced the wire I accidentally cut into the insulation of the wires a little. Should I be concerned about wires touching causing a short? I covered everything up with heat shrink tubing, but unfortunately may not have individually wrapped each section I cut into. I am not really concerned, because the insulation did not come off the wires, it just got little cuts on the sides, not entirely through the whole thing, so I'm thinking that it will remain effective at insulating the wires from each other, and I shouldn't be concerned?

Nope, nothing in that picture indicates a short circuit precondition at all.