What type of wire do you use?

[Glorfindel]

Kind of curious as to what you guys use. I've been using 30 gauge Kynar wire and I find that after several runs of testing my lighting, connecting to power and so forth, the circuit fails and nothing lights. (this drives me nuts as I have to undo all my work and sometimes do it thru finished product) This wire is strong but thin. I'm wondering if because it's so thin it shorts easily if handled too much? Do you guys prefer solid core over strands? What gauge? The Kynar is great for the tiniest of places but I'm thinking Magnetic might be a bit tougher. Thoughts.

[Joseph Osborn]

I've used Kynar wire for the last couple of projects with no trouble. I previously used a lot of solid copper that I stripped out of old ethernet Cat-5 cables, but that wire is stiff.* Stranded wire is traditionally used when flexibility and movement is needed, but I could never find a local source (i.e. Radio Shack) for cheap thin diameter stranded wire. You can get 22 or 24 gauge stranded wire, but the 30-gauge solid Kynar wire is so much easier to use inside a model. I've never tried magnetic wire but I wonder if it's easy to nick the insulation and not notice the problem until you smoke something?



* I have some Cat-5 patch cords, which are generally made with stranded wire, but they are too valuable to me to strip for use in models.

[Ant]

Solid core wire is very prone to failure at anchor points (connections etc) if handled much. I'd always use multistrand if at all possible.

If you can't find very thin stuff, try stripping down 2 core audio cable for headophones etc - you can usually find some nice stuff inside the braided screen layer

P.s. I think it's "magnet" wire not "magnetic" wire - because it's used to make electromagnets & transformers. More commonly known as enamelled wire...

[Tchail]

I recently started using #30 "wire wrap" wire from Radio Shack.

So far, I haven't had any trouble and have been very happy with the results.

I also purchased a low-temperature soldering iron from NEngineering. It's small size and quick heat up have made soldering a lot easier on small components.

-Tchail

[Kylwell]

Alpha 32awg (7/40) from Mouser. I far prefer multi-strand over solid for soldering tiny things.