Hey all,
I'm looking for a source for really thin (like 26AWG or thinner) wire with a high temp sleeve. I have 24AWG wire at the moment that is simply awesome (high current, flexible as hell, bloody easy to solder to) but it's too thick and the thin stuff I have has a sleeve that melts away as soon as the soldering iron even gets close to it. That and it's also stiff as a teenager's sock.
Any suggestions?
- Matt
I have some extra 20 and 26 Teflon coated that doesn’t melt but is stiff. Calvin seems to be out of stock at the moment. How much do you need? I still have a photo mailer so postage is cheap.
What lengths?
Edit. I'm not sure if this is any good to you.
24 AWG
Outside Diameter :1.6mm
Strands: 40 tinned copper strands
Strand Diameter: 0.08mm
Max Temperature: 200 degrees celcius
Unfortunately that's thicker than the stuff I already have! (1.1mm just measured). I have a feeling what I'm after does not exist in high temp silicone...
Have a browse of element14. A bit of information overload but you can compare different aspects of the 26awg. Thickness in that gauge varies from .75 to 1.6mm. You can also see the conductor area and the current rating. I don’t know about high-temp but there are a few different jacket materials listed. I’m guessing PVC is the cheaper stuff that isn’t very flexible and then there’s some other PTFE ETFE weird materials I don’t know about.
There’s nothing listed for 26awg silicone though it’s only available in 24 and thicker. Silicone’s rated at 180 and the ETFE is rated at 150 which is available in 26awg. How critical is it that you need wire to take you beyond 150 anyway? Even over 100 you’re going to be experiencing other problems I’m thinking.
Good point. I'm on E14 almost everyday yet I never thought to actually look at what wire they may have. Der.
Try RS Components too they have free shipping on all orders. Element is $12 or under $50 or something.
I’ve been buying all my teflon wire from Johnswireshop.com
He’s got teflon wire down to 32AWG. Very high quality wire.
When you search ebay for 26 AWG wire silicon, there's quite a few hits from china, there's options in length and colour, I just bought 5m white 26AWG silicon wire (I need some too :-) ) for 4 dollars.
[quote=Ouchyfoot] I've been buying all my teflon wire from "Johnswireshop.com":http://stores.ebay.com/Johns-Silver-Teflon-Wire-Shop?_trksid=p2047675.l2563 He's got teflon wire down to 32AWG. Very high quality wire. [/quote]
Oh nice! I seemed to have dismissed Ebay all together. Scratch - I didn't even think of it. Sounds odd, but I don't use Ebay very much...
Not all wires are built the same. I’ve tried ebay silicone wires but they’re nowhere near the quality of hobbyking ones. Ebay ones do have silicone outer so not cheating, but the internal wire is much stiffer and seem to break easier.
Then again different ebay sellers may vary, the point is you never know what you’re getting.
My link is for teflon wire, not silicone, but when you’re dealing with the smaller gauges it’s quite flexible and a lot thinner profile than any silicone wire you find. I’ve been using it almost exclusively.
I just got some AWG24 from hobbyking but I couldn’t find AWG26, I am stocking the small sizes now too because I really love this flexible and sturdy wires, no poisonous fumes from melting isolations anymore :bigsmile:
If someone has a ebay source with known good quality please share so that I can order some meters too.
I have Teflon wire too but I never use it because it is hard to dismantle and stiff…
Absolute thinnest 26ga. teflon I have found is the 250V rated stuff (MIL-W-16878/6) outside dia. 0.033” or 0.8mm. Found some 7 strand black and white twisted pair on ebay once and it’s really too stiff, 19 str. would be ideal if you can find it.
I'll probably order a few lengths from different places and take note of which I find to be the best. I have some hobby king 24AWG I use for most of my projects but sadly its no good for a P60 pill I'm building that has 6 wires going to and from the emitter PCB :(
RGBW p60?
One thing I like on silicone wires is that you can burn the insulation with a torch to make it a bit thinner. I have the 3XML PCB from scaru and the holes were a bit small for the wire I wanted to use so I burned a bit of the insulation on the last 10mm of the wire. It fells down as grey ash. This is not suitable for the whole length but it may come in handy for short length…
For thin wires, what about the inner wires in phone or network cables? They probably have poor heat resistance though.
I think I’m with Ouchyfoot and nickelflipper. Silicone wire is nice to work with, and while it typically has a thinner jacket than other types of wire AFAIK the jacket will never be thin. The teflon wires I have have thinner jackets than either silicone or PVC jacketed wire. Teflon may be a your best option if you don’t want to mangle the shelf in that pill.
If you’re “going big” you could always use solid core enameled magnet wire. J) I’d glue or epoxy it in place. That’s not a very practical suggestion, but I thought I’d throw it in the ring since in another thread you were kind of thinking “go big” with those XP-E2’s.
I’ve been working on a lot of lights where I’ve got 10-12 separate 24/26AWG teflon wires coming through the pill to the driver. They are very thin and scrunch up easily inside the pill. They start getting a little stiff at 20AWG. With the Teflon, you’ll be able to use a heavier gauge than the silicone because of their lower profile coating. To strip 24AWG teflon you’ll need to use the 26AWG hole in your stripper. The shell is very slick.
Not sure if this will work: i.imgur.com/le9UovY.jpg (uploaded on my phone but only loads a grey square on my desktop...really odd).
Yeah that's an RGBW P60 drop-in.
The wire I have in there is from a German company (http://www.muldentalelektronik.de/) bought via Lux-RC. It's REALLY good stuff. 24AWG, easy to bend and a relatively thin silicone jacket. The braid is high strand and copper so it sucks solder up like a vacuum almost immediately. It was labelled as "MULTIDENTAL ELEKTRONIK 0,25 QMM 130 x 0,05" but I can't seem to find it on their site anymore. It's just a bit too thick.
Teflon wire seems to be the way to go, but as I said earlier I'll probably try buy a few different samples from various places.