CAT5 = bounty of wire

[Jon the Art Guy]

Mine is stranded, but still better than buying! I'm imagining the older cable you would find in thrift stores or a box in your attic has 24awg solid in it.

[Heath]

Dude.. I just raided some phone cabling from my workplace!  Other than the plastic coating being more of a pain to strip (i'm a blade and fingernail caveman), it's highly..er.. economical :D :D :D

[Madferret]

That's an awesome idea, and my old store just went onto a VOIP phone system.  Hmmm, seems like they'll have no need for all those old runs of cable...

[IvIark]

Yes definitely a good idea.  Plentiful, cheap and you can nick it from the IT department at work   One of my mates has absolute miles of this as well so I think I'll go and aprehend some off him.  Thanks for the tip!

Another option to think about, I bought 50 metres of 20 core ribbon cable off eBay and it's perfect for pots, so I just cut a short length of either 2 or 3 cores for each one depending on the pot wiring and it keeps them together nicely which helps make the offboard wiring that bit easier.  The cores are pretty thick in the one I got as well and it'll last for years

[tedruxpin]

Don't suppose you have a link for that ribbon 20 way?
:)

[IvIark]

This was the guy I bought it from and he doesn't have any auctions up, but it may be worth messaging him and seeing if he still has some:

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/4025phil/

It was 50M of 20 core, and the multicoloured one like this:

http://www.rapidonline.com/Cables-Connectors/Ribbon-cable-coloured-71075

[GoranP]

I stumbled across some surplus 28awg rainbow ribbon cable (dunno how many strands). Is this stuff usable for pedals (I usually use 22 or 24awg)?

[IvIark]

Yes it will be great for pedals.  It's basically the equivalent of 7/0.1 which I have used lots of times in pedals.  Thin wire can be a pain, but if you've got a decent stripper, and you expose plenty of core so the soldering is sturdy then it is fine.  In fact in some ways it's better than anything larger because smaller wires present less of a physical obstacle when positioning the board and there is obviously less strain.

[GoranP]

I just bought a Klein 11057 stripper that's supposed to be really good.

It does 20-30awg solid and 22-32 stranded. I've only used it on 24awg pre-tinned stuff so far but it works great!

I'll give the rainbow one a go as soon as I run out of "the good stuff", as well as Cat5. It's easy to come by for me since I work in IT.

[Jon the Art Guy]

I've been looking and looking and only am finding stranded anymore in cat5. As long as you're good at threading stranded through holes, it's great. I need to hit up more thrift stores to find more.

[GoranP]

True dat...

I pre-tin anyways (when using stranded wire) so it's not much of a problem.

That 28awg rainbow ribbon is stranded anyways, something like strands per wire.

[johnk]

I use silverplated Teflon coated belden. it's small enough to go thru the holes in the vero for stress relief and it's insulation doesn't melt when you solder it. it's kind of expensive, but to me , it's worth it.

[GoranP]

Interesting, I've never seen it...

Is it this one?
http://www.hndme.com/productcart/pc/viewcategories.asp?idCategory=20

[peavey_xxl]

Holy shit I have thousands of feet of this!!!!!!  And you don't want to know how much of this I throw away at the end of a spool.