If I were to use 20 gauge wire instead of the recommended 24...

[Guitar Toad]

...my pedal would still work but the impedance of 20 Ga wire would be lower and will slightly affect the circuit if were being picky.

How many points would I be deducted in I were in an EE circuits class? Would I go from an A project to an F project?

But a stompbox with 20 wire instead of 24 would still work, right? The audible difference would be choose one significant/negligible.

I say this knowing that any self-respecting Stompbox DIYer would use the 24 ga wire because, simply it's the right thing to do. Right?

*so what do I do with the 3 rolls of 20 gauge wire that I bought from Radio Shack? Put it on ebay*

[LyleCaldwell]

I prefer 22ga, but will use 20ga over 24ga any day (though not from Radio Shack - that's terrible wire and horrible to work with).

24ga likes to break if you look at it crosseyed. 

[twabelljr]

     To me 20ga. wire is just too big and clumsy for small enclosures and circuits with alot of controls. Although 20ga. will work just fine, I prefer the neater layout of 22ga. or 24ga.

*so what do I do with the 3 rolls of 20 gauge wire that I bought from Radio Shack? Put it on ebay*

Use it. You may find you like it.

[Paul Marossy]

I thought thicker wire = more tone! (just kidding)

[Guitar Toad]

I prefer 22ga, but will use 20ga over 24ga any day (though not from Radio Shack - that's terrible wire and horrible to work with).

24ga likes to break if you look at it crosseyed. 

Well, not knowing any better 24 gauge sure looks aweful thin, and fragile. I didn't know what gauge to buy and I really wanted to buy some wire that day about a month ago when I was in RS. Just looking, 20 looked alright.

You guys sure gave me a lot of slack on this question. I appreciate it. For some crazy reason, I expected some really cool, techno babble as to why I shouldn't use the 20. You guys are alright. but it does sound like I need to upgrade from Radio Shack to Belden or other quality wire. I did get one good disqualification. You can't totally let me off the hook. I'm ok with that.

[Guitar Toad]

To tell you the truth...I don't know why I didn't say this before...I've been looking for 20-24 gauge single conductor shielded wire to use for guitar and pedals. I saw it somewhere in 24 gauge but now I can't find it. But, the shielding is a bit overkill if you put stuff in a metal box, but if I can find it and if it's not too expensive...why not use it?

[twabelljr]

     I just started using the pre-bond wire from Small Bear after reading good things about it here. It is pre tinned and the insulation does not melt and curl back when look at it.   It is a bit stiff, but it helps to hold it's shape if you need to bend a corner or something. Comes in 20, 22, and 24ga. If you do decide to get something different, try this stuff. As for shielded wire, use the RG-174 also found here.

http://www.smallbearelec.com/Search.bok?category=Wire+And+Cable

[LyleCaldwell]

It's only overkill until you have a noisy pedal.  Between gain issues, microphonics, and crosstalk, there have been plenty of times where I've needed to shield at least a few of the wires in an effect, regardless of the surrounding shielded enclosure.

[Guitar Toad]

20 guage will make the whole thing blow up.  I built an amp with 20g one time and totally fried the transformers

OK, so what's the rest of the story?

[Guitar Toad]

     I just started using the pre-bond wire from Small Bear after reading good things about it here. It is pre tinned and the insulation does not melt and curl back when look at it.  It is a bit stiff, but it helps to hold it's shape if you need to bend a corner or something. Comes in 20, 22, and 24ga. If you do decide to get something different, try this stuff. As for shielded wire, use the RG-174 also found here.

http://www.smallbearelec.com/Search.bok?category=Wire+And+Cable

Dude, I was looking on the SmallBear site and totally overlooked that RG-174 wire. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

I thought thicker wire = more tone! (just kidding)

it's true in the case of silver wire. BUT, if it is copper or worse, thicker wire actually degrades the signal.

[zachary vex]

all i can say is wow.



wow.

[smnm]

I'm showing my ignorance here, but does it make that much difference what wire you use in stompboxes?

I've never worried about it, but admittedly my work is generally pretty slapdash. I use shielded cable for some jack-to-board connections if the circuit is known to be noisy, but mostly don't bother. I can see it makes a v marginal difference, but for an inch or two max of wire in a shielded box, is it worth it, or is it a concern for the super perfectionists among us only?

S

[R.G.]

I'm showing my ignorance here, but does it make that much difference what wire you use in stompboxes?

Electrically, no, except in special cases.

Mechanically, maybe.

The real story is that wire thinner than you'd care to work with works fine for almost all stompbox applications. That's because the relative resistance of the wire is so much lower than what it's in series with that the wire resistance itself doesn't matter.

Mechanically is another story. The thinner a wire is the more it can flex without breaking. But the thinner it is, the more fragile it is compared to the rest of the mechanical stresses encountered in soldering, mounting parts, putting a board into an enclosure, etc. Thick wires work fine, but they're a pain to bend into place and solder. Thin wires work, but you have to be careful not to break them. Pick wires that YOU are comfortable soldering. What size is that? For most people, it's #24 to #20, and the industry uses #22 in most cases.

Stranded or solid? Again, determined by secondary issues. Both work fine. Stranded wire flexes more easily, so the wire transfers less mechanical stress to any fixed places, like soldered joints. This makes it much less likely that vibration, impacts, unmounting and remounting, etc. will break off a wire at a solder joint. Solid wire can be bent  into position and it will mostly stay there, which makes for neater wire routing - if you care. Some people do, some people don't. The effect still works until you wiggle a wire enough to break it.

Stripping wires is a big determiner of how they work. If you nick the surface of the wire with the strippers, it makes wire breaking more likely , of course. With stranded, the failure may be a long time coming because there are other undamaged strands in the middle. With solid, the break comes sooner rather than later, depending on how much the wire gets flexed.

Shielded is useful for critical runs into high impedance points like FET inputs. RG-174 is the longtime standby for shielded inside stompboxes because it's about 0.1"/2.54mm diameter and flexible. In a pinch you can by cheap phono extension cables at Wally World and cut them down though. I have a spool of 100' of RG-174 that I've been using for over a decade and haven't used it all yet.

20 guage will make the whole thing blow up.  I built an amp with 20g one time and totally fried the transformers

I once built an amp while eating a baloney sandwich and it burned out the power transformers.   

Seriously, while you may have fried the transformers in your amp, it wasn't the wire gauge that did it. Miswired 20ga, sure. If the 20ga was too thin, the wires would have melted their insulation off. 

[trumpus]

Speaking of wire - I have been using the 22g solid wire from RS.  I bought the 22g Prebond stuff from SB, but i like working with solid wire better.

Is this bad?  Should I be using stranded wire?  If solid is ok, where can i get some (read: links would be great) good quality solid wire, perhaps some silver wire?

Thanks,
Brian

[Mark Hammer]

For the lengths that are normally used within a Hammond chassis or something of a similar size, the linear resistance differences between 20 and 24-guage wire are insignificant.  If we were talking about wires running the long side of something like a Marshall or similar-width head, it would probably start to matter, but not when you're dealing with 4" and shorter lengths.  Same is true about cable capacitance. Both depend on the length of the wire involved.

RG's comments about the mechanical qualities are spot on.  I will qualify his comments, though, by saying that "ideal" guage will also depend on the type of builder you are and type of build it is.  If it was a well-planned out commercial product, where all the wire lengths and chassis-mounted component positions were known, where there was a battery compartment, etc., and where the length and shaping/bending of every connecting wire was known, then a thicker guage provides a sturdier product with a professional look and feel.  Every wire sits where it is supposed to, turns every corner uniformly and has no risk of fracture at where it meet the solder joint.

What about the rest of us?  What about us folks who build a board, and have pots and stuff hanging off of it, then go and buy/machine a box when we decide it's something we like enough to want to package?  Have you ever TRIED stuffing all that crap into a 1590BB?  or trying to find a place for the battery under all the wires?   I don't know about you, but I need my wire to be almost double-jointed in terms of its abilty to bend or be bunched up.  So, while I *used to* use a nice 22AWG wire that was good and sturdy, I've fallen head over heels in love for the pre-bonded #24 I got from Small Bear.  If I was turning out many copies of products for commercial sales, I'd probably stick with #22 and maybe even #20, but for one-offs, #24 meets the special challenges there more effectively.  As for the risks of fracture at the joints, I use a piece of heat shrink around solder lugs on pots, switches, jacks for strain relief, and a dab of hot-melt glue where the wire meets the board for the same purpose.

[RDV]

I use Radio Shack wire exclusively.



RDV

[twabelljr]

    Another cool thing about the pre-bond is that it is stranded, but it handles like solid core. The stripped ends don't tend to fray easily when you don't want them to.

[Guitar Toad]

I thought thicker wire = more tone! (just kidding)

it's true in the case of silver wire. BUT, if it is copper or worse, thicker wire actually degrades the signal.

It's true?
Where can I find this silver wire? Smallbear?

[Paul Marossy]

It's true?
Where can I find this silver wire? Smallbear?

Yes and no. Silver wire is 7% less resistive than the same equivalent gage of copper wire. However, in wires 1 or 2 inches long, you will never be able to hear a difference. Now, if your wire was 100 feet long, that might be a different story. Bottom line is, don't waste your money on something like that for a stompbox (or even an amplifier).