Bell wire for tricky mods

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

I have been looking for something like this for a while but hadn't thought of this. It's called bell wire and I found it on a rare trip to home-depot. It's basically one copper wire inside of very very thin insulation. It's fairly rigid but also thin. It's great for doing multi-emitter or anything where you want the resistance of a heavy gauge wire but don't have the room for it. It was cheap too ($7) and it really does work well for a number of mods. It's not the easiest stuff to work with for all mods though because it's ridged but actually for the multi-emitter stuff in particular it's perfect. Anything where you don't have the room it can work.

2

It’s handy stuff. I have used it for some applications needing the support of single core wire, like joining two PCB.

3

Nice find!

What’s the covering on the wire made of?

Sometimes I find that PVC tends to melt when I solder the end of the wire. That doesn’t happen with Silicone or Teflon wire.

4

It will melt if you need more than one try to get it right. I should have pointed that out, thanks for reminding me.

I don’t mind because I’ve gotten pretty good at getting it right now. Gotta love good flux.

5

Hadn’t thought of that one yet, it would be perfect.

6

Another common place for single strand wire is low voltage sprinkler wire that comes in multi conductor cables. 1’ of cable can yield 5’–7’ of conductor.

7

I had some 24awg single strand lightly coated, it’s a fairly heat resistant coating, from cat5 ethernet cable.

Looks similar to what you have. I never really used it, far too rigid for my applications.

The coating doesn’t take well to abrasive movement or being bent against sharp edges.