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Best place to purchase wire?

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Ken Layton:


I wonder if Ken has ever even used it.



Yes, I have. I have done over 500 game conversions and actually built at least 350 control panels from scratch. Radio Shack wire in the 22, 20, and 18 gauge is crap. I've bought wire from local auto parts stores that was 1,000 times better than Radio Shack's wire .

My local electronic parts jobber, Electronic Resourcing (Tumwater, Wash.) stocks Belden and Carol wire. I buy Belden mostly because it's very high quality wire. It costs more than other brands, but you get what you pay for.

I never use anything smaller than 22 gauge wire for control panel wiring.


gap:

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly makes a wire crappy?

I used 20ga stranded stuff from RatShack for my CP, before seeing this thread.

It's strands of copper wrapped with plastic-like sheath.  How does someone mess that up?

Is the copper impure, resulting in a higher resistance or somesuch?  Or is the sheathing prone to cracking or some other form of failure?

It's fairly low voltage and low current under my CP.  Is there something I should be worried about?

currygoat11:

<<but what exactly makes a wire crappy?>>

I agree, how can Radio Shack wire be that bad?  Please elaborate..

MonitorGuru:

Just buy old printer cables in the 50 cent bucket at your local thrift store !   SERIOUSLY.

Inside, most of them have 25 individual strands of wire, all uniquely color coded as well without duplicates.  

It won't work for power wire, but will work for all interface (joystick, trackball, spinner, buttons) connections.  

spiffyshoes:

It's hard to describe.  Once you see it though.  If your used to using better wire you'll recognize the difference.

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