No, this is not an ad, nothing of the kind, nor do I know ANYONE at Gorilla nor their distributors – though I SHOULD.
For many years and like, no doubt, many of my subscribers, I’ve been struggling with mounting USB hubs, cameras and mains extensions on walls and shelves – very frustrating – and these days, for me, even more so as my patience is almost zero. At least in the UK you get two semi-useful mounting holes on mains sockets – in Spain you don’t even get that – and as for USB hubs…
Last week in desperation at the state of cheap, primarily Chinese double sided foam tape and sockets dropping off walls by the sheer weight of their cables alone, I simultaneously went off to B&M – who also sell cheap, Chinese double-sided tape – and picked up some “T-REX Ferociously Strong Tape – Made in the USA” – and off to Ebay for some “Gorilla Heavy Duty Mounting Tape (Double Sided)”. First things first, the former is not double sided (my fault) and it doesn’t seem at all special anyway.
But the GOOD news is: The Gorilla tape (from an Ebay supplier (I use Gorilla glue all the time – a true innovation but I just assumed they’d taken someone elses double sided product and put their name on it – that’s what I get for thinking), despite being obscenely expensive at £6 for 1.5 metres – WORKS. In the past that price alone would have put me off but I was desperate.
A few days ago, I opened the tape reel and mounted a 7-way USB hub on the front face of my shelf, a 6-way mains extension on my plasterboard office wall – and a pair of mains extensions (one 6-way, one 4-way) on the redundant side of my tower PC. And THAT, sad to say, took up the whole roll so I’l taken delivery of more.
ROCK SOLID. There is no way they are ever coming apart – good job I got them straight. I am so excited – another of life’s challenges sorted. I can soon reclaim at least half of my very long desk. Magic.
AND, last week, before all of this, I put a pair of mains extensions on the skirting board in the living room to keep my wife happy (cables in covers) and one almost immediately dropped off – it has been lying there ever since. I hsve to say, I did get ONE mails extension who’s grip to the wall was less than perfect – I’m assuming that was due to a high gloss plastic finish. I’ll sand it a little and try again if it comes off again.
Meanwhile, TESA UK Ltd have kindly sent me samples of THEIR super strong tapes…
“Powerbond Ultra Strong 100Kg/m”, “Powerbond Mirror – Water Resistant”, “Powerbond Indoor – 50Kg/m” and “PowerBond”, the latter designed for outdoors, UV resistant 10KG/m). I’ll test these soon. I know, it isn’t electronics but to relax and do our stuff we need to take certain basics for granted, like sockets staying on the wall for example.
Look for 3m VHB – if you want the powerstrip/hub to break before the fixing does…
Its often used for number plates and fixing paneling on vehicles.
Pete, check out this trial of double sided tapes.
Well, that was a bit of a waste – LLPT came out just about best but it has to be imported from the USA and came out accordingly at at ridiculous £13 a roll + £15 postage as against £5 all in for alternatives – this kind of pricing is not unusual for imported US products – no doubt why I don’t seem to review many US products.. aside from 3M and Loctite I’d never heard of the others – just the Gorilla.
Hello Pete
This is what I use but it is expensive
Pattex “No More Nails” Adhesive Tape Maximum Strain 100 kg / 19 mm x 1.5 m
1,5 m will hold 100Kg (I have not tested that, but nothing has fallen off yet.
regards Brian
The TESA tapes do not fare too well in the Amazon.UK Reviews either.
Might be worth trying Command tapes made by 3M for hanging paintings.
They come in a wide range of sizes and can be found in supermarkets, B&Q etc.
Sorry if I’m mising this Brian, I dont hang paintings – oh I SEE, well that has to be strong. Well I’ve been trying to order 2 more rolls of Gorilla Tape, Amazon can’t deliver until late next week, CPC looked good until I noted that despite a good price and no postage, they stuck a £2 “handling charge” on the end. I asked why? The reply came back “I’m sorry we are now closed until Monday”. Their loss.
“Command tapes” ? Well, I can get to B&Q this weekend.. I have other mains sockets to mount so this could be worth investigating….
I have NEVER come across anything to touch this clear tape. 24 hours later (hang on) yup, wall is rock solid (painted plasterboard) and side of my beige tower – 2 mains sockets – and shelf – 7 way usb – all rock solid. Utterly amazing.
The white Chinese foam you get in supermarkets ((UK and Spain) , Poundstretcher and B&M is not worth a LIGHT. This is exciting for me (I know, easily pleased). ONE narrow DS foam tape I tried a while ago – 3M pro stuff was way better (stains after a while) but not in the same league as this new clear stuff. I guess new people will think I work for them… no.
Here they are –
https://command.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/command-gb/hooks-strips/
Might be useful but in this case, cleanly and easily removed is not what I need- mounts permanently and never comes off is what i need 🙂 NOW, not next week….:-)
It is a nightmare. I hope the powers that be, come to their building senses and put low-voltage rails in future houses. 220V is almost obsolete.
As tapes go, i love the tesa powerbond. it is of the foam kind so you need get some extra few mm of height of whatever you’re sticking.
And if you want to use it as a non-definite solution, ie, may want to remove the object at some point, you will need to leave some tape exposed, removing it by pulling/streching the tape, leaves no residue though! https://www.tesa.com/en-gb/consumer/tesa-powerbond-ultra-strong.html
Not cheap, but comes in different strengths. Vertical bonding, no techblogger-wife joke intended here, is no problem for most surfaces.
It is no problem to run a low voltage supply in a local area like an office / workshop / lab etc. Just get a computer power supply or a SMPS unit and run the various voltages to some suitable sockets / connectors around the area. One needs to use suitable sized wiring because whilst the voltage is low the current can be quite high and also to minimize voltage drop. Then make some leads up to connect to your ESP’s, Pi’s, Arduino’s etc.
I actually ran 12 VDC from a 20A supply and dropped it on a local socket to 8 volts (or anything you want) using an off the shelf step down module to feed devices with on board regulators. As Peter would say ‘It works a treat’ and has de-cluttered my workspace.
Thanks Bob, anything can be made as Pete shows regularly 😉 And yes suitable wiring needed.
My point was more that houses these days hardly need 220v anymore, but low voltage usage has exploded. So away with the 220 sockets i say and build houses with 24 or 36v grid and smart switchable wall sockets with a choice of output voltages 32 for powerusers like washing en cooling, 12 or 5 for most other bitsnbobs… 🙂
Wiring would cost more and not help greedy sales people sell more houses.