Hello! I was looking for any recommendations on purchasing wire.

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Hello! I was looking for any recommendations on purchasing wire. I know, sounds simple but why can’t I find a local company that provides wiring for these types of projects? I live is Southern California and have shopped around but most places carry wire that is higher gauge and made for 110V stuff mostly. Currently, I mostly use the Silicone Cover Stranded-Core Wire from Adafruit because its super flexible and you basically cannot melt off the coating. It works well with the smaller projects that I do.

And recommended websites to purchase from?

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Digi-Key http://www.digikey.com/

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Depending on your needs, I use heavy duty Servo extension cables with the connectors on them. On the LED strip I solder a pin header to that and then I can plug the serval lead right to it. It works great. For longer runs, you can just purchase the wires bulk up to 50 feet I think

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I love the silicone adafruit wire, as well. You said local but also websites…Have you checked micro center?

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As a follow on, does anyone know anyone who would do wire harness assemblies in low volumes? Not just wires, but also connectors? High quality assemblies are hard to do at home.

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At my company we use http://www.awcwire.com
They also do added value services like cut print etc.

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@Amelia_T I have checked there, standard single strand twisted or solid wire. They sell some Adafruit products but none of the wire. Fry’s too.

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Peter, I’ve purchased those servo extensions up to 1M long. How long do you need?

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Tim, you might try going back to the big box store and look for phone or alarm wire, usually can find it with 4, 6, or 8 wires.

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Would depend on the length and gauge needed. My (turning out to be far more) long-term (than I thought it would be) Christmas lighting project uses meters of 18-gauge speaker wire for power feed, and meters of 8-wire phone cable for the signal wire. For smaller projects I usually “recycle” wire from my collection/junk box. For example, old serial cables (that a lot of people just throw out) is a great place to get lengths of fine, multi-strand wires.

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I work for a company that gets lots of custom cables with really nice connectors and what not. But doing outdoor projects, doing projects that include lots of lights over distance mean lots of wires. Mostly I’m going to use Cat 5 for some of these projects. It’s safe, can carry signal and power over moderate distances, and is robust and relatively cheap. Lacks good connectors though.

Custom cable creation is most likely way too expensive anyway, but it’s a nice thought I suppose.