What type of general wire to use in the stompbox?

[syzygy]

Is there any difference in using braided, twisted, or solid wire?  What gauge is best?

I heard braided is good against interferance.. Don't suppose there is much of that in an effect pedal tho.. hmm?

Thanks

[D Wagner]

Is there any difference in using braided, twisted, or solid wire?  What gauge is best?

I heard braided is good against interferance.. Don't suppose there is much of that in an effect pedal tho.. hmm?

Thanks

24 gauge stranded.  Pretinned wire is even better.  It holds it's shape, and solders easily.  You can get it at Small Bear Electronics in any color you want.

Derek

[syzygy]

Ok, and I assume 24# on SmallBear's site refers to 24 gauge?

[dubs]

Keeley uses a solid core teflon type wire, anyone know where you can get that?

[boogielicious]

I'm pretty sure it's Belden wire.  Mouser has it.

Scott

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Solid if it doesn't flex, stranded if it does. Simple as that.
If you consider the major things happening elsewhere in a FX circuit, the wire type matters not at all. SmallBears pretinned is sure nice to work with, though!
And sometimes you have to use shielded for the input or other sensitive parts of the circuit.

[mojotron]

At theoretical level, since the electrons move around the outside of the conductor, and the resistance of wire (due to the skin effect - how deep into the wire the electrons can travel..) is based on the ratio of wire the wire's diameter and the frequency of the signal... Where, skin effect is the inverse of the impendence - inductance really - of the wire itself... So, the more surface area the better... and stranded wire has more surface area than solid, the thicker the better..... Now, if you are moving a lot of electrons in one direction - heavy current - you would notice the inductance of the wire as heat... small wire - lots of heat, thick wire - less heat... all due to the depth of the electron's path as well as the amount of surface area of the conductor.....

As I said, this is theoretical, in reality for audio signals the impendence of wire is basically 0... However, in practice... I noticed that when I used really skinny solid wire - the sound I got from effects was very lo-fi - crud basically. And, in general, I have liked the tone better with using bigger and bigger - stranded (more surface area for the electrons) - wire and much shorter wire lengths. Now, I generally use 22 and 20 gauge wire on effects and 18 gauge wire where it makes sense (guitars...), and I am really happy with the tone.

One has to argue that the component leads are quite small in diameter, and are solid. However, generally the component leads are very short. If you breadboard a TS808 and never trim the leads, then compare a careful build using stranded wire (20,22,24 gauge...) you will hear the difference. Of course, solder-less connections and the breadboard itself are also contributors to bad tone as well....

So, in general, I can't say definitively if bigger wire is better (between 20-24 gauge wire...), but I can say that I don't like the sound of builds where I used solid wire and the wire lengths were more than 1"... stranded wire seems to work better for longer wire lengths (around 2-3").... And, Although harder to work with, 20 and 22 gauge wire is what I use; it's also very rugged...

That's my 2 cents.... YMMVIMOFWIW yada yada yada....  

[syzygy]

Very informative. and wow, you must have sensitive hearing!

[j0shua]

I use a good wire and very flex ( OLD FLOPPY DISK wire or any IDE computer device wire )

is very wasy to solder and great results .......

cheers

[jmusser]

I lucked out a couple months ago, and got hold of some Belden shielded twisted pair cable that was stripped out of a control box. It is wonderful! It's fine stranded, 24 gage wire, with teflon insulation. It solders great, and the insulation doesn't melt and pull back from the joint. If you've got a buddy who is in telecomunnications, they strip stuff out like that and throw it away by the arm loads. If they're pulling and HF or VF cable stub up into an outside remote housing (like you see them open the door of and work on along the road), the stub they throw away, will make you a million boxes. The only bad part, is having to skin it out and unwrap the shielding to use it for hook up wire. I stripped out probably 60 feet of it the other day and rolled it up into coils. It's work, but it's done now, for years worth of builds. Each pair has a bare ground in with it under the shield, that is great for running power and ground rails, if you do perf builds like I do.