What wire do I use to build my first pedal circuit?

[Pedroga]

What wire do I use to build my first pedal circuit?

[antonis]

21 AWG (0,72mm diam / 0,41mm² area) to 23 AWG (0,57mm diam / 0,26mm² area) stranded wire should be fine..
(22 AWG solid core for jumpers..)

[ElectricDruid]

What wire do I use to build my first pedal circuit?

The wire you've got!

(That's what I did, anyway, and it worked ok...)

[duck_arse]

old printer or scsi cable, cut plugs off, plenty plenty of colours, size is good and small. length o.k.

[Kevin Mitchell]

24AWG is great for stompboxes and alike.
Solid core is my standard
Stranded for anything that may move - like if your PCB is mounted to the bottom plate of an enclosure and intend to open it often.

The reasoning for that is solid core can only take so much abuse before it becomes fragile. But it does stay in place unlike stranded. Stranded tends to have memory and conform to the roll it came off of but is not as fragile.

[davent]

Stranded 22awg with PTFE insulation, five colour scheme applied consistently throughout all the stuff i make.

dave

[bluebunny]

Stranded 22awg with PTFE insulation, five colour scheme applied consistently throughout all the stuff i make.

dave

^^^  Be still, my OCD heart.  This, this, this!   

[anotherjim]

What's awg?  ...there's also swg.
7/0.2mm for me.
Still working my way through bunches of this...
https://www.bitsbox.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=200_202&products_id=2937
Not for pcb link wire though. Cut off component legs or whatever uninsulated pre-tinned uninsulated single-strand copper wire that fits.

[bowanderror]

Wire is one of the more forgiving components in your build, but over time I've settled on 24AWG solid-core wire, with Teflon insulation in 6 different colors. Wire is also one of the few pedal parts I tend to buy on Amazon or AliExpress. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Wire Thickness - 22 or 24 AWG is thick enough to carry decent current, but thin enough to bend easily

Core Type - Solid-core, stranded, or pre-bond

• Solid-core wire is easier to route & solder, but will break easier too.
• Stranded is stronger but requires tinning & is not great for PCBs
• Pre-bond is kinda the best of both worlds, and is stranded with solder bonding the strands together

Insulation - Silicone, PTFE (Teflon), or PVC Insulation

• Silicone & Teflon are preferable as they don't melt & are easy to strip/bend
• PVC is cheaper, but can heat up & retract from the joint, leaving exposed conductor that can break or short

Insulation Color - Different wire colors make it easier to keep track of what wire goes where. I use 4 standard colors:

• Red (V+)
• Black (GND)
• Green (Input)
• Blue (Output)

For pots & switches, I also like to use:

• White (pot or switch lug 1)
• Yellow (pot or switch lug 2)

but follow your own synesthesia...

[vigilante397]

• Pre-bond is kinda the best of both worlds, and is stranded with solder bonding the strands together

This. I used solid core for years before I discovered pre-bond, and now I buy pre-bond in 200' spools. I only use two colors though (red/black), since all my pots and switch connections are board mounted, so I really just treat them as "signal" and "ground". Easy enough to tell them apart. Before that I was part of the green/blue/red/black/white club.

[Phend]

Well there is no such thing as smartphone wire, I have used old fashioned phone wire or cat wire which have strands of different colours.
Don't use that old curly cable that went from the hand set to the phone, too messy that is.