[kaizer]

I am in the process of getting rid of a bunch of old crap from our server room at work, and came across this fairly good sized spool of 24AWG solid copper wire that they usually use for punching down phone patch panels. Its 2 solid strands each insulated.

Is this wire worth anything at all in the audio world? Ive been thinking of starting to practice my soldering(I have next to no experience).. will this wire piss me off more than help me in my practice? Should I just trash it and get something more worth while to practice on. It seems to braid ok

If I had a camera I would put up a picture of this stuff..bleh.. maybe I just need to buy one

 

[Fitz]

Telephone cross-connect wire would be a little too fragile to use for cables, imo. It breaks pretty easy if stressed/bent a lot.

 

[ericj]

If it's got heat-resistant insulation, you could use it for diy stuff *inside the amp. If you wanted.

Otherwise, recycle it. Copper is expensive these days. The cheeseburger you eat with the proceeds will give you a thousand times more satisfaction than you'll have soldering solid 24awg with PVC insulation and watching the PVC melt and droop and drip and burn all over the place.

 

[Fitz]

PVC, and very thin, so it takes up less space in large bundles of wire and gets cut through very easily when being punched down on the 66 blocks. You can strip the wire with your fingernails.

 

[ericj]

Well, plenum rated telephone wire sometimes has insulation that, while not exactly heat-stable, doesn't deform on the wire for no better reason than being hot. The "Teflon(tm)" brand insulation on the cat5e I'm rewiring my house with is some other fluorinated polymer than PTFE, and melts easily, but doesn't deform unless you actually abraid it or put pressure on it.

But if this is riser rated, there's no way it's anything better than pvc.

 

[Fitz]

The OP has a spool of cross-connect wire, not a UTP cable like Cat-5. And I have to correct my statement before, it could be polyolefin insulation instead of PVC, I'm not sure which it really is offhand since I've never really had any reason to care before.

 

[mono]

You could use it for various audio related areas where it wasn't subject to repeated flexing, but for most purposes it is not going to do as well as something else. Audibly it may be ok but mechanically it's best for it's intended use.

 

[kaizer]

Thanks for all the replies. The sticker on the side is really faded and mostly worn off.. but I do see something on there that says "PVC". I guess ill just go find some better wire online somewhere for the task.

 

[damballah]

I made an interconnect cable out of this stuff one time for a joke, it wasn't a very successful endeavor. It picks up tons of RF interference.

HTH,
Steve

 

[kaizer]

I was hoping to get away on the cheap for wire.. oh well

I ordered some Canare Starquad cable today.. a bunch of ends of various sorts. All of which I plan on destroying in my first attempts

My wallet has asked for a restraining order.

 

[Fitz]

If you still want to practice with braided wire at all, I have plenty of 24 and 28 gauge stranded SPC you could have some of.