Wire
I love wire. Wire is one of the Modular Electronics.
Tips/Techniques
Buy in Bulk
You will save a lot of money.
Look for Local Surplus of Wire
I found 2000 feet of 22 gauge wire for $15 2024 prices from a local electronics recycler. Wire is one of those things that the wire factories can't stop breeding producing, so there is always a lot around.
Wire Wrap
Not a lot of modern use of wire wrap, but the small gauge wire and the cutters are useful. Pretty much if you build a board with wire wrap, murphy will disconnect/cause oxidation on three wires and you'll never figure out why the board doesn't work.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/lfs-cheap-wire-wrap-tool-and-sockets-(uk)/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/do-people-not-wire-wrap-anymore/ http://web.archive.org/web/20201027182555/https://jonard.com/sites/default/files/product_files/Data%20Sheet%20-%20Wrap-Strip-Unwrap%20Tool.pdf
Compare speed wire to wire wrap. The former is a lot more reasonable, but you will still need an enclosure otherwise wires will get knocked off over time.
Wire Wrap
Speed Wire
Soldering Wire to a Bolt
Assuming you match the metals correctly: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/how-to-reliably-connect-copper-wire-to-stainless-steel-bolts/msg5446019 Solder lugs are cheap. I bought a few for a Spot Welder I made. Of course, you can also crimp them with a ring connector (which is probably what I would recommend. Though you don't always have high current crimps (i.e. for car batteries) so in that case, you might consider a solder lug).
IDC Cable Problems
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/high-reliability-ribbon-cables/msg5449421/ - Digikey made cables error. No one bothered to look up the cable (they kept asking: "who makes it?") until the 2nd page, even though info was provided.
Be Careful with RF Cables
RF Cables can be expensive. And easily broken per Amp hour 533: https://theamphour.com/533-microwave-measurement-with-joel-dunsmore/
Finding a Break in a Cable
A couple of resources.
- Using a TDR to find the break. https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/using-a-time-domain-reflectometer-tdr-to-find-a-fault.110637/ (I did not read the link, but just want to post something to show there are other results out there. Use the search engine). A writeup on TDRs is in ISBN 0-7506-1601-6, METE by K. Brindley.
- https://theamphour.com/481-an-interview-with-paul-thompson/ - This is the fellow from the amp hour whom builds electric fences. If I remember right, they discuss fault finding in wires (I think he has some custom solution to this). I'm not sure he discusses all details of how he does it, but as a reference, it should be checked.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOzEpJogSFg LER / Learn electronics repair. Per hackaday. He uses Capacitance. This is one of those techniques you hear about, but forget if you don't use it. So I'm leaving it here as a reference. In this example, he is comparing it to the capacitance of some other wires, which means you may need multiple conductors for this method to work. The hackaday post has some comments that are worth reading. They say the NanoVNA software can do TDR. https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/how-to-find-where-a-wire-in-a-cable-is-broken/
- Using a NanoVNA per https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/any-tricks-for-finding-a-break-in-an-underground-wire/ https://groups.io/g/nanovna-users/topic/using_nanovna_to_detect_an/90375131
