Ive seen this once somewhere here and i think they used wire from a 3 wire wrapped cable.
This wire with 3 wires inside once stripped back had insulated single strand copper wires in the perfect size, I think it was 16 gauge for the overall 3 strand cable. Ive always disliked multi strand wire due to breakage, Plus i could use pieced to help support and connect the driver to the outer edge of the P60 copper slug.
I think ill try radio shack as im wanting to solder some today, But if you can point me to an affordable place to obtain this wire it would be most appreciated.
In australia anyway, you can find thicker strands of copper from house mains wiring. Electrical/building suppliers had this.
Alternatively, you can just buy spools of enamel coated copper wire, small spools from electronic stores (spools of a couple ounces weight). I use those because the enamel coating helps protect the wires from shorting where its not soldered, but it melts off when heated so self "stripping" wire.
Heres an Australian store showing the product. Pictured is a much thinner wire
(I dont use single strand for torches, I use multistrand to reduce breakage. If you solder a good solid piece of single copper to the pad on your MPCB, and you accidentally apply a load on the wire, you have a high risk of actually lifting the copper tracks off the mpcb, ruining it (you will then need to either solder directly to the LED, or remove the LED and get a new MPCB) Only use copper single strand where you want the lack of flexibility.)
This is actually a great example.. lol. This is 1mm wire I think (about 1/25"), and those are XP-Gs on a 20mm wide pill. You can see where a stiff wire can be useful, but on the left side, you can see where I have actually broken the track and soldering pad for one of the contacts. Luckily there was another pad to the side which shared the same connection, but thats an example of where you have no room for adjustment. It happened becasue I had soldered one end of one of the copper wire arches on, but it wasnt aligned correctly to the other side, so with some force, it didnt bend the wire, it just sheared off the copper tracks/pad from the MPCB. (lets ignore the lifted emitter for now)
Between the driver and the PCB, I have used a stranded wire because I need flexibility there.
Bit on the thin side... Unless you clip them from power diodes. I use them for links when soldering up circuit boards. I like the size of the wire from the IN4001 power diodes
Pre-tinned too!
My soldering iron tip is dying, it wont even take solder, but I'm too cheap to change the tip. Currently using a 40? watt TC iron from altronics, tips are $15 each!
I just got back from a shopping spree which turned to be rather fruitful.
40' of 24 gauge copper bare wire.
30' of 20 gauge bare copper wire.
3x 30' rolls of insulated copper single strand red/black/green 22 gauge copper wire.
The first two ill use to solder drivers to the copper drop-in slug on the bottom and also for wrapping drop-in's and coating with thermal compound for some heat-sinking as i don't like aluminum foil.
If i find the insulated stuff too stiff ill switched to stranded copper.
