Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.
Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.
I bought one of those jumper wire kits when I got my first breadboard. It's great for the smaller wires when you need to jump 2 or 3 holes.
I also have a bunch of network cable that was in a garbage can at work that I like to use for the larger spans (just cut and strip what I need).
I've got a few reels of single core wire. It's the exact same stuff that you get in those jumper wire kits, just that I've got a reel of it instead. It's also the stuff I use for doing my stripboards.
Most network or telephone cable is #24 or smaller gauge. It'll work, but I find that it gets a bit touchy as the breadboard gets a bit of wear on it. I managed to luck into a "deinstallation" at the Naval base where I was stationed on Okinawa. They were throwing out a couple of hundred feet of this cable. It made it to the dumpster but I managed to snag it before the locals got it to recycle for the copper. It was 30 pair cable, each pair individually shielded with a drain wire. All wire was tinned, #22, solid copper with single-color insulation. When you went through all the various pairs, I ended up with all ten EIA colors. Insulated wires could be pulled for breadboarding; drain wires for short breadboard jumpers; shields pulled in long strips for making custom 300-amp jumper cables. Wonderful stuff. Needless to say, I'll never run out of it.
Oh. Uh, the question. Yeah. I like to stick with #22.
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