What conductors do you use in electronics?

Thread Starter

wolly

Joined Jul 11, 2018
31
I know that in electronics you use copper wire but that wire is single or multiple(more than one wire)?I've never worked with conductors in my life and I have no idea what to use in order to create a circuit.I searched google but the results showed me some conductors that are used in the electrical industry for electrical installations.
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
28,617
What are you thinking of working with initially?
If creating a circuit and using a breadboard for example, one source is single conductor telephone cable.
When wiring between components etc then you have to consider the gauge, usually dependent on the current of the circuit, also multi conductors are used for flexibility, insulation thickness/rating is dependent on the voltage carried by the conductor.
Max.
 

shteii01

Joined Feb 19, 2010
4,644
For breadboard, you will want solid wire like what you show in a pic on imgur, the other option is to use stranded wire with a crimped pin on the end. You can also buy jumper wire with crimped pins/sockets on ebay, use those for breadboard circuits.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
The wire you need depends more on physical constraints of what you’re doing, like fitting into a breadboard. Large currents require fatter (lower gauge) wires but just about every hobbyist electronics project will be fine with 22AWG solid (not stranded) copper hookup wire. It fits breadboards or printed circuit boards, is easy to solder, and is easy to find and work with. Stranded wire is better if there might be repetitive motion that would cause a solid wire to fail.
 

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,845
I have no idea what to use in order to create a circuit.
You probably want solid wire.

CAT cable (bundle of 8 #24 wires) works for both point to point wiring and solderless breadboards; but it's a bit of a compromise.

It's a little too large for point to point (I prefer #30), and a bit too small for solderless breadboards (I prefer #22). But it's cheap. I used to pick it out of the garbage cans at work when contractors were pulling cables.
 

Janis59

Joined Aug 21, 2017
1,834
The first is to make a choices for:
1) Do You need a small current wires or large current wires
2) Do You need a wires for relatively small frequency or for hundreds of MHz
3) Do You need a flexibility or it is not demanded in the process of exploitation
4) Do You need a different colours of insulation or it may be "monochromatic"
5) Do Your demands of wear protection are high (double insulated), or average
6) Do Your demands about max voltage are average or over few hundreds of Volts

By the way, sometimes, for high density wiring in-area of pcb may be used thin winding wires (0,3...0,4 mm). It allows to connect to such tiny objects like microprocessors and looks rather nice.

If any other aim is to make an in-pcb tracks, the internet cable cat4 cat5 inner wires are very nice, coloured, thin, easy solderable, and easy de-insulable.

All the rest of cases about 99% may be covered with second hand wires from all old audio, TV and electro gadgets. Just stop to throw em out before all useful are taken off.

And only then, if really the need is one-piece kilometer, then buy a wire in shop.
Of course, the winding wire buy always fresh. Nothing is more bad than used insulation lack.
 
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