Wire

[royewest]

Turns out I have quite the variety of wire after all these years.

Belden shielded 2 conductor with the solid grounding wire (I think I first discovered that in the Quickie kit)
Teflon-coated copper wire of different gauges that i've twisted together in the past
Mysterious 6-strand stuff that is twisted and braided and has a clear coating over color-coded (wins most-attractive prize)
Cat 5 and Cat 6 Ether cables
I'll stop there

I'd welcome advice on the best of these kinds of wire to use, for example, for runs to a power supply (socket for a power adapter or batteries close or far) and for runs to RCA and speaker jacks. By "runs" I mean less than a foot.

I guess what I'm asking is wire advice in general, not about my particular collection.

Note that I'm sure gold-pressed latinum wire drawn in the space station in an oxygen-free environment is spectacular, but that's not what I'm asking about here.

As always, grateful for any advice.

Thanks,

__Roy

 

[Larpy]

Depends on what you do with the wire.  The Belden shielded twisted pair is good for small AC signal wires (from an input jack to a volume pot, for example) or for heater wiring.

If you're wiring multiple inputs jacks to a selector switch, the Cat5 wire is functionally the same but easier to work with (because there is only one shield to deal with).

Solid core copper wire is good for most everything else.  For all of the Bottlehead kits I've built, 20-22 awg wire is sufficient.  24 awg wire is, for me, a bit too thin.  18 awg solid core wire is nice to work with as long as you're not trying to solder multiple components to the same terminal lug.  Then it can get too crowded.

Solid wire is best for a wire that, once soldered, stays in place  Stranded wire is best if the wire will be handled after soldering, as in the case of the speaker or interconnect cables.

For power supply wiring, I'd use solid core teflon-covered copper wire, 20 awg.  For wiring to an output or speaker jack, I'd use the same wire but as a twisted pair.  No need for shielding at that point of a circuit.

 

[royewest]

Thank you -- this is what I was fishing for

 

[Doc B]

You must also consider the voltage rating of the insulation on the wire with respect to the application in mind. When working with tube amp circuits there can be plenty of situations where the typical 300V rating is not high enough for B+ wiring.