I hear many people use Cat 5 cable for their wiring. Question

[Hoagie_one]

Question 1

How many strands of wire are inside the cat 5 cabling?

Question 2

Where's the cheapest place to buy it in bulk (w/ cheap shipping)

[Sprucemoose]

CAT 5 has 8 strands of wire, each one is a 22 gauge (i believe) single wire.  I use it in my cab because I can get it for free at work.  I would recommend using a multistrand wire, more like speaker wire for your control panel.  The CAT5 has the same performance, but it is more likely to break than a mult-strand wire.

If you do buy CAT5, I know they sell it at Lowes, Home Depot for a reasonable price.  

[Hoagie_one]

I thought you could get stranded cat5?  Only reason I was thinking of using Cat5 was so that I could keep it all bundled together nicely

[JODY]

You can get stranded or solid.  I tried to use it but only had some of the solid and it kept breaking.  Definitely use stranded.  I wound up getting 18 gauge stranded speaker wire at Sears Hardware store for something like 3 cents a foot and using it.

[Wienerdog]

I've never seen stranded Cat5, I wouldn't bother looking for it.  Cat5, Cat5e, can Cat6 all work, but it seems the consensus around here is that 18 gauge stranded is ideal.  

[TalkingOctopus]

I used 22 gauge and some zip ties.  It worked great and I have no complaints.

[steve_pss]

please use stranded. i used solid and it is MUCH more prone to issues.

[aust_txv]

Hi,
No big deal but all CAT5 cable is 24AWG.  Use it as a last resort.  It breaks but does work.  Find 22AWG stranded.
Have fun,
TV  

[grafixmonkey]

I've never seen stranded Cat5, I wouldn't bother looking for it.  Cat5, Cat5e, can Cat6 all work, but it seems the consensus around here is that 18 gauge stranded is ideal.  

?  You must not have looked much.
Here's some at mwave.com:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/doSearch.hmx?bop=and&scriteria=stranded+cat5&UID=&CID=&Back=&n=1
you can get a bunch of 25ft. patch cords and cut them to size.
But, I agree that using a lower gauge (thicker) wire would be the best way to go.  Network cable is not meant to be bent a lot.

I suggest getting wire ties to group your wires.  Or using electrical tape (because it's flexible.  If you wrap wires with it it acts just like the insulation.)  Duct tape (Duck? Duct?) would work well too.  

If you use thicker cable you have the option of using molex connectors to attach to your ipac.  That's what I'm doing with my panel.  Saves you having to have all kinds of wire labels, just write down on a piece of paper which molex pin is which control, and tack it to the cab wall or put it in a pouch inside your cab.  Use a molex pin removal tool, and you can swap wires around.

[Hoagie_one]

I had wondered bout a pin removal tool.  Where could I get one?

[thewhizard]

theres a local computer shop that has cat 5 100' stranded for $10

the in wall stuff at home depot is solid

I've never seen stranded Cat5, I wouldn't bother looking for it.  Cat5, Cat5e, can Cat6 all work, but it seems the consensus around here is that 18 gauge stranded is ideal.  

[TrickyFishy]

I did some of my preliminary wiring with CAT-5 and although its convenient (I have lots of it + its all bundled) I think its a little flimsy to work with.

I'm going to redo it with something thicker.

[grafixmonkey]

I had wondered bout a pin removal tool.  Where could I get one?

Happ sells them in both molex sizes.  I got mine there, so I don't know where else to get them.  Radio Shack now sells Molex plugs so they might also sell the pin remover.  Try electronics stores like newark.com and digikey.com too, but they sometimes have minimum order limitations.

I just found out that the plugs in a PC power supply aren't the same pin size as molex.  Look darn close, but they're not.  So you probably can't buy molex connectors to match your PC power supply plugs.  You can however fit molex connectors to the wires yourself, if you cut off the original plugs.