Which wire do you use

[Heath]

I have to second Rocket88.  Barry's stuff from guitarpcb.com is the best I've found.

http://www.guitarpcb.com/apps/webstore/products/show/2249043

[Snare227]

I've bought Barry's Best wire before and at first I liked it, but after a while I started to hate it.  I guess I'm just a flexible 24 AWG stranded kind of guy.

[rocket88]

I just started using Barry's stuff and really love it. I'm going to try other too, but its relatively cheap, thin, and flexible. So much nicer then the solid core stuff I used before that was thicker too. I would break at joints all the time. I now only use the solid stuff for my grounding.

The drastic difference made me think that as long as its good flexible stranded wire, rather then solid wire the offboard goes easily, and can be made nice and neat.

[alltrax74]

I finally bought wire from www.bulkwire.com, I took the AWG 26, 6 colors
Very nice, flexible stranded wire at a reasonable price

[Geiri]

Barry's wire is really expensive..

[rocket88]

I didn't think so cause the stuff near me is 2-3x that cost of Barry's. But, I'm cal ways looking for something better and cheaper. The problem also is that I like color coding to help make diagnosing issues, and tracking my work easier, so getting 1000ft of each is ridiculously expensive.

Is there any company that should be avoided cause of poor wire? Cause I just started searching 22ga awg stranded wire and found some companies that have really really low prices like bulkwire. I could get 100ft of 10 colors in 22ga for $9 each or 24ga for $7 each. And if I wanted 1000ft it's under $60 for each.

[Geiri]

If you like to colour code then it makes sense. I've got black and white reels just for the heck of it.

I think you should never ever try to save money on wires, unless you actually find a good deal on good wires. It also depends on how you wire pedals. Some people manage to get the circuit nice and steady in an enclosure so there's no worry about it moving (thus snapping wires later) so you could virtually use any wires. With vero I need good wires but with my PCB based pedals, I could use anything but I still go with the same ones because I love them.

[rocket88]

Great advice Geiri. It's hard to find good wire at a reasonable price, especially when searching 22AWG wire. There are thousands of companies that show up selling the size, but never really find out it its good for what we do. I wonder if I can get them to send a sample to see the quality and if it will work well for builds.

[adstrum]

I bought some 24AWG from this eBay seller. I'm pretty happy with it.

[Geiri]

I buy these 1,000ft reels but I think you can get much smaller quantities too.

Yeah check this out: Link

[rocket88]

That's awesome Geiri, thanks for finding smaller rolls of the wire. I'll have get some to try. Smallbear never lets me down with their stuff. BTW, I can see how much you save from getting 1000ft, it's like getting almost 400ft for free.

[Ktzenjammer]

What kind of wire stripper do you use when you're on 26 awg? That size is hard to strip with a knife or a cutter without damaging the metal part...

[Heath]

Snare227 wrote

I've bought Barry's Best wire before and at first I liked it, but after a
while I started to hate it.  I guess I'm just a flexible 24 AWG stranded
kind of guy.

All of the stuff I use from Barry is flexible 24 AWG stranded.

[Heath]

Geiri wrote

If you like to colour code then it makes sense.

You nailed it right there.  To some people it doesn't matter.  Unfortunately I'm so scatter brained that using one color, or even two, for all of the pedal wiring would increase my chances of a stupid mistake by about 200%.  :/  

I do things like leaving an extra row on each side of my vero boards so I can do the wiring up through the outside hole and in through the next hole for strain relief.  No sooner do I start cutting, linking, and populating the board than I completely forget I sized the board 2 columns wider and BAM, totally screwed up.  I do this repeatedly.  Did I mention that my brain is a giant asshole?  Yep, I'd punch if I had a spare.

So, anyway, back to stuff...

There's a couple of different reasons I buy my wire from Barry:

- He's a great guy and a decent honest member of the DIY community with a great reputation for taking care of his customers.  

- The quality is amazing.  I've gone back to some old wire stock I had when I started or I've ordered colors Barry doesn't stock from other places... in both instances it felt like I was working with complete garbage.  Floppy, fragile, doesn't twist well, and tangles the moment you put it anywhere near a vero hole.

- He usually gives away freebies with orders over $35, so anytime I'm getting some stuff from him and it's only adding up to $20 or so, I'll toss a bit of wire on the order and pump it up to #35.  Keeps my in wire, keeps him in business, and I get some freebies :)  Win/win.  

- His shipping is really low for domestic orders.  That's something I have against other vendors.  Smallbear, for example, is run by a GREAT guy and they have a wonderful selection of stuff.  It's also about 1/2 again  to twice as expensive as anywhere else I buy stuff.  If it's $10 at Mammoth (who is not cheap by any means), it will inevitably be about $15+ at Smallbear.  I could live with that expect the shipping is ridiculous if you aren't buying a large order.  Mammoth has this shipping issue as well... if you need to grab a couple of items, say a dual gang pot you weren't finding elsewhere and a Vactrol.  Should domestic shipping really be $8 for that?  So, unless I had a large order to buy and I was buying it from Smallbear because I just felt like randomly paying more, I don't see it being any cheaper (unless, of course, bought in 1000' rolls which is not for me).  Mammoth's wire is not worth the both.  Not terrible, just not notable.

That said, I DO like the selection of colors Smallbear offers and I could see myself possibly making a one time purchase of a few 50' rolls of blue and orange and grey wire to supplement my stock if it's as good as you folks say it is (and I have no reason to doubt you, heh).

- It stays out of my way.  I've been driven near homicidal rage by trying to solder when a curly piece of floppy ass wire keeps flopping back in my way.  With Barry's stuff, I just bend it between forefinger and thumb and boom, it's out of the way.

- It goes through the vero holes without splaying.  I get murder-rage when I can't get a piece of wire through the hole without one or two of the strands kinking up.

- I use a hobby (xacto) knife to strip my wire ends.  It's just habit.  With this wire I make two quick shallow slices  where I want to insulation off, stick my thumbnail in the groove and "shoop!" right off, quick and clean.

|v|ark, I used to use colored ribbon cable for my pots when I had some good stuff, but I ran out of it.  I ordered more on Ebay and the stuff I got was absolute irredeemable CRAP.  I still used grey harddrive ribbon cable to wire pots when I've got three lug connection on a common board side.  I just wish it were a little more durable.


What I do NOT understand is how you people use 22 or, god forbid, 20 gauge wire.  I can barely get 22 gauge wire through a vero hole.  Way too frustrating.  I use some for guitar wiring and when i went to wire up the pots and switches for a new guitar I'm building (something I haven't done in a while), the 22 gauge wire felt like I was wrestling an anaconda after having worked with 24 gauge exclusively for so long.