Where can i get a good , cheap wire kit?

Thread Starter

DJG2011

Joined Jul 23, 2011
4
i was wondering where i can get a fairly large, cheap wire kit possibly not connectors or jumpers, just normal wire kit with wire of different lengths, differents color, different use's ect. ect
 

KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
Almost all electronic parts vendors carry wire spool sets. Different gauges, colors, solid/stranded, and lengths. But, not cheap. I've taken apart old multi-conductor cables...like computer cables. If you want solid wire, there is also telephone and cat-5 cable.

Ken
 

KJ6EAD

Joined Apr 30, 2011
1,581
Last edited:

yan500

Joined Jul 12, 2011
48
If there's a Radioshack nearby you can probably find what you're looking for there. Don't expect the salespeople to know anything about electronics though, they're pretty much cell phone salesmen.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
I prefer solid gauge wires for breadboard, it is a must for protoboards. In a board the wire doesn't need to move much (probably not at all). Stranded is for wire that is connecting a board to the case, because it has to be flexible.

Protoboards generally need 24 gauge sold wire. Otherwise you have to judge from the current requirements.

There are many types of insulations, I'm not even going to try to cover them all. My favorite can be hard to work with, it doesn't cut easily, but it can stand the full heat of the soldering iron without melting. That is teflon insulation, and it is very expensive. It also tends to do something called cold flow, press it between to hard surfaces (or wires) and the insulation slowly moves out of the way. It is basically the same material used on plumbers tape.

Most other insulation melts around soldering irons, you just have to hone your soldering techniques to use it.

A while back I bought 30 gauge teflon wire to use on my perf boards.

Prototyping Electronic Circuits
 

someonesdad

Joined Jul 7, 2009
1,583
Here's a tip: buy old boat anchors from the 70's and 80's and take them apart. I've done this with HP and Ithaco equipment. My favorite was an Ithaco lock-in that I got for $50 delivered on ebay. I was hoping it was working, but I was OK with it if it wasn't. That's because it was absolutely loaded with good components: 10 turn trim pots and 10 turn pots with turns-counting dials. Plus a lot of usable miscellaneous hardware (screws, etc.) and good sheet metal. There was also some good aluminum rectangular stock (I'm a machinist too). The thing was a gold mine...

The reason I mention this is that I've taken a number of HP instruments apart and often get really good wire from these instruments -- I salvage it and use it again. HP often used to use a wonderful tinned stranded wire that is a dream to work with, usually in the 20-24 gauge range. I took apart a wave analyzer that gave a goodly amount of Teflon-insulated coax. A differential voltmeter gave some beautiful precision resistors. The HP analog instruments (e.g., a distortion analyzer) gave up beautiful analog 50 uA meters -- and these are superb. I once took one apart to turn it into a microgram balance and that was a lot of fun.

Anyway, you sometimes can get this old stuff for free or a song.
 
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