Anyone know where I can get a few metres of the very thin stranded insulated wire used for internal connections to motor etc. From inspection the wire appears to be stranded 7/0.1mm with an overall dia 0.5mm. I emailed Hornby some time ago and they haven't bothered to reply.
The cores from telephone wire?
Damn good try, but I actually have some of this and, thin as it is, its actually twice as thick of the stuff needed. Its too stiff and inflexible unfortunately (has to span between loco and tender where there's some electronic stuff I'm installing) steve
Try the cores from an old mouse, keyboard, or printer cable (you don't throw them away, do you?). The latter is a good source of most (if not all) the official DCC colours.
MBQ
It's sold as 7/0.1 by Maplins - or it was a while back. It would be under "cable" as that's what it is. Alternatively, any electronics type place should sell it as it's a standard cable for panel wiring.
Cheers Richard
7/0.1 in singles is actually quite uncommon. Try finding it at any of the major electronic distributors, or Maplin. 7/0.2 is far more commonly used as "equipment wire" fro panel wiring and the like.
The best source is to strip it from multiway cables as already mentioned.
MBQ
Hi Paul Thanks a lot for this. It's the right stuff and I've ordered some. What impresses me is they don't expect you to buy hundreds of metres at huge prices. They seem to sell in 10 metre lengths in a variety of colours very reasonably regards steve. Thanks to the other guys who posted here too, for their tips.
In message , steve marchant writes
I recently bought 100-metre reels, in red and green, of 10/0.1 wire, from Rapid Electronics. The price was £2 per reel, and postage was negligible as I was buying quite a lot else at the same time. To me, £2 for 100m., i.e. 2p per metre, is not a "huge price"
The Rapid 10/0.1 wire is actually quite chunky at 1.05mm overall diameter. I'm confident that you'll be happy with the wire from Express Models - it's what I use and is the same as used on current Hornby models, as far as I can tell.
The Rapid stuff is about the same dia as the telephone cable cores which Christopher in this thread suggested. But I will keep it in mind for other apps, as its inexpensive (as Jane says!) Glad you suggested Express source.
Try the lead wires from discarded head phones.
cheers,
wolf k.
pr=E9c=E9dents -
Fair comment but! All my pre retirement suppliers have steadily upped their minimum orders - sufficient to make it non-viable or the model shops keep limited stocks of size & colour. Maplins went the other way and cut out selling reels and went down the 10M route.
Regards
Brawa do some nice fine multi-strand plastic insulated wire. I don't have their catalogue handy, but it's about 0.5mm diameter and available in about 6 colours. Comes in about 10m rolls, expensive by wire standards but still reasonable. A 10m roll will do a lotof locos!
Greg.P. NZ
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