High Quality wire

[Paul1453]

In another thread I mentioned the high quality wire I salvaged from my HP gear.

It is 20 gauge stranded wire that is completely tinned prior to getting it's plastic coating.

The stuff is a dream to work with!

No worries about bending your solid core wire too many times and breaking it.
And no problems with tinned ends not being perfect or having stragglers, or a bird cage after the tinned area.

Does anyone still sell this kind of wire, and is it extremely expensive compared to normal wire?   

After enjoying working with this kind of wire, I don't really want to use anything else anymore.   

[MoparWade]

Have you used the wire that Hoffman sells? If so how does it compare? If not then I recommend giving it a try as I find it very easy to work with.

[Paul1453]

So the wire at the top of Doug's wire page is the same as what I described that I find in my junk HP gear?

There wasn't a picture of the stripped wire for dummies like me.

The pictures down farther show stripped common stranded copper wire as is found almost everywhere.

I hope it is, because after using this type of wire the other stuff just doesn't compare well.

Getting good results with this type of wire is simply faster and much more convenient. 

[MoparWade]

Tried uploading a photo but this site is not iPhone friendly. Yes, his wire is nicely tinned and a dream to work with.

[Paul1453]

Thank you Wade!   

I read the description of that wire, but it just didn't register in my pea brain.   
Hey Doug, a picture for the slow folks like me would help sell that wire.   

There is no doubt that after using this type of wire,
you realize just how much of a pain in the ass the other wire is to work with.

IMO, this type of wire is definitely worth paying twice the price of regular wire.   

If anyone else has not used this wire yet:
you will save huge amounts of time,
get consistently better results with your solder connections,
and waste far less wire and time redoing substandard wiring connections. 

[eleventeen]

As a fellow scrounger, yes, absolutely, the wire from old hp gear sucks up solder in a flash. I don't know what specifically makes it different, it's just kind of wire until you go to solder it, then it's "drink up!"

[MoparWade]

Now I'm curious about this unicorn of wire. Maybe it's best I don't ever find any because I'm pretty happy with Hoffman's stuff.

[G._Hoffman]

The problem with completely tinned wire is it is much more likely to break, causing shorts and such.  Ideally, you want to have just a bit of wire stripped which isn't tinned (approximately a length equal to the diameter of the wire.)  This keeps the wire in the insulation supple and bendy, which means it is less likely to break as you handle it and move it around while testing and such. 

Truthfully, not really a big deal in a tube amp, but man do they freak out about this stuff in the aerospace field!  (I have a hobby of reading NASA workmanship documents.  What can I say, I like to do things right.)


Gabriel

[Paul1453]

Well the Army spent at least 40 lab hours just training us how to tin wires, make j-hook connections, and properly solder a wire in a cup.   

Even being properly trained, this can be a tedious procedure.

Then your tools and materials can make it even more difficult to do it to standards, if those things are of poor or inconsistent quality.

I don't know what it would take to break this tinned HP wire?
It is nothing like using solid core, and it seems it may actually stand up to abuse better than stranded wire you've tinned properly. 
No birdcages or stragglers possible.

It's just so much nicer to strip back some wire and have a perfectly tinned wire that is easy to bend and solders very well consistently. 

[FranciscoPerez]

Do you guys mean this?

I use it all the time, it's really a dream to work with. Makes wiring an amp so easy...

[Paul1453]

Do you guys mean this?

I use it all the time, it's really a dream to work with. Makes wiring an amp so easy...

Yup, that's the stuff.

Look at it.

Manufacturer's braid, not just lightly tinned on the surface.
But permeated all the way through it's core.
It bends perfectly, but can even be unbent easily without damage if you've made a mistake.
It doesn't break like solid core, or even stranded wire that is tinned but not completely to the coating.
The untinned wire between the plastic and the tinned tip can bulge (birdcage) or have strands break.

I bought some Mil spec. Aircraft wire, supposedly.
It is not tinned like this, just fine stranded copper wire.
Now had I not just salvaged and used that HP wire,
I suppose I might think the Mil Spec wire was good stuff.
But now I look at it and ask myself,
"Where can I get the real good wire when my scraps run out"?   

[FranciscoPerez]

I might be able to help! Not too long ago I ordered a few feet of this wire in different colours and gauges from a company in the US.
I'll have a look and let you know, but please don't order the whole stock!!!

[MoparWade]

This is the stuff Doug sells.

[Paul1453]

That looks pretty close, Wade.

Is it saturated to the core like Fransisco's and my HP wire?

If not, it might still be close enough.   

[FranciscoPerez]

There you have!


http://valvestorm.com/Products/Wire

[Colas LeGrippa]

Hi buddies !


I only use teflon coated wire that I can find once in a while in a cheap electronic store. I guess they buy bunches of stock from closed companies or in auctions. Sometimes the multi braided conductor is tinned, sometimes not. The advantage of it is that you can heat it up again and again and the coating will never melt or detach from the conductor. The importance for me is in the coating though an already tinned wire is even easier to work with.


Colas