Hook up wire

[Mgt280y]

I'm sure this has been covered before but ...
I'm getting in a bit of a mess with my wire want to try and get a proper amount of each as I keep buying small amounts and forgetting what the sizes are, where's the best place to get it on a reel rather than coils that get tangled and what size should I be using it seams to be 22/24awg but U.K. Suppliers call it .6 and to look at its all very similar it's not until you go to use it either it's too big or the ins goes in the hole as well

[boppy100]

What I use is not the best looking or easiest to use, but works well enough for my use. 
A friend gave me a roll of about 200 ft of cat 5 cable when he retired from Verizon.  This is 8 conductor 24 ga solid wire, each in separate colors.  Works well, but is hard to make look good.  I do not have the issue of it breaking due to over bending.
Also bought ribbon cable from Ali express.  I got 5 meters of 16 conductor, stranded, 26 ga for $5.25........that's 80 meters

[vigilante397]

I also use the color-coded phone wire. You have to be careful with it, but I do like that it stays where you put it.

[stringsthings]

Smallbear hookup wire is really good.   I use the 24 gauge.
They come in 25ft or 50ft spools or a 1000ft spool if you need a lot of wire or you just like wire! 

[duck_arse]

old printer cable, old scsi cable. seven strands of .oh-something each wire, hundreds of colours, thin insulation for the excitable types. free; recycling.

[EBK]

+1 for smallbear's wire.  Really quality stuff.  I use 24-gauge stranded and 22-gauge solid. My solid wire is from somewhere else though because I had a large spool, which has lasted decades. 

[greaser_au]

Available wire sizes usually depend on the market, the US still use AWG, but Europe, and the UK (and Australia/NZ) would likely supply new wire in metric sizes.  As you are in the UK you may find some surplus SWG somewhere, but that would  be a lucky find... 

common sizes in the range you're looking at (these are conductor diameters or equivalent):
22AWG = 0.64mm
24AWG =  0.51mm 
22SWG = 0.71mm
24SWG = 0.56mm


Stranded wire is often listed as "number of strands/size of strand",  e.g. 7/0.2  = 7 strands of 0.2mm which is approximately equal to 24AWG;  22AWG would be  7/0.25.    ref: http://www.canford.co.uk/Technical/Article/MetricAWGWireSizeEquivalents

Most electronics supply houses (e.g Maplins?) would supply a limited range (one gauge maybe) of light duty hookup wire in cut lengths or small rolls.  The more serious buyer might go to RS components or Element14/Farnell, but you need a bit of knowledge to select the right thing (and it's seldom cheap).   If you're really serious about a whole roll, look for 'electrical insulation' in the yellow pages (or, of, course the more obvious 'electrical wire' but most of these results will lead to suppliers who want to sell you house mains wire  );   in this  case you'll need to know exactly what you want.

david

[thermionix]

+1 for smallbear's wire.

+2

The #24 pre-bond is perfect for pedal building.  Might be expensive shipping to the UK, but get a big spool and "buy once, cry once" as they say.  Pick a colo(u)r you like, because you'll be using it in everything.

[aishabag23]

Another vote for Small Bear wire. By far the best I've used so far.

[bluebunny]

Smallbear is great, but not close by Northants.    Try Bitsbox.  There's a range of 7/0.2 stranded and single core 0.6 that I've used (and continue to use).  There's a handy multi-coloured bundle of each that you might want to try out.  You can get bigger reels from Rapid, but I can't quickly find it since they've "revamped" their website.

[slashandburn]

I mostly use the Maplin 7/.2 stuff for stranded and their bellwire for singlecore  It's slightly on the skinny side for standard strip board but it does the job. If the insulation was slightly thicker it'd be almost perfect, I'd say.

I'm in no way affiliated with the company. It's probably more economic to buy bigger spools from elsewhere.

[tubegeek]

apexjr.com is an excellent wire supplier whose fire never tires.