[Oublie]

Hi,

Anyone know where i can get decent quality high voltage 600v + wire. This will be for hookup and also for stax cabling. Even shielding so i could make my own would be nice. Would double layer ptfe around thick enough silver e.g. 2mm dia work or is there more to it than that?

Thanks.

 

[luvdunhill]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oublie /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi, Anyone know where i can get decent quality high voltage 600v + wire. This will be for hookup and also for stax cabling. Even shielding so i could make my own would be nice. Would double layer ptfe around thick enough silver e.g. 2mm dia work or is there more to it than that? Thanks.

you could just sleeve PTFE coated wire in Teflon tubing (available from Handmade Audio for example) or just use some heatshink (1-2 layers, depending on how paranoid you are).

 

[Spasticteapot]

I'd just use any sort of wire with a decent layer of insulation - 600v isn't all that high.

 

[Nemo de Monet]

Yeah, 600V - even 600VAC - isn't really "high voltage", which is usually considered "multiple kilovolts", roughly.

You might want to check out these folks, who have some teflon-insulated silver-coated copper wire rated for - wait for it! - 600V, at $0.90/foot, or non-silver 600V teflon-insulated wire for $0.19/foot...

 

[Oublie]

Superstars!

Thanks guys, i'll make my own, ive a load of pure fine silver here so ill just get a couple of different diameters of teflon tubing.

 

[SiBurning]

The question to ask when running high voltage through wires is what would happen if something failed? How much current can go through it if you develop a short, and what would happen then?

Don't know much about the Stax, but a quick look says these things can put out up to 2300vac rms. That tells me the current output is going to be very limited. Let's pretend... In a total failure you can get something around 2300VDC which is about enough to produce a spark in rather normal conditions at a distance of about 1 mm. That tells me you need to be careful with routing, not just insulation.

I'd be pretty nervous if this thing could produce more than 10-20 mA in the most bizarre failure. Conservatively, I'd be careful if it could produce more than about 10W. At 30W, it could kill.

Even 12V car bateries have killed people in bizarre situations. I'm not suggesting panic. Just to be careful. This thing can easily become very dangerous.

 

[Oublie]

I only need to run a single cable from a 2.2m resistor on a voltage multiplier to a bias connection so I should be fine with double insulated wire - very few mA.

 

[SiBurning]

To be safe, I'd run the insulation all the way to the ends of the wires so there's less than 1mm between the bare wire and anything else. To be honest, I don't know about the amp, so maybe it's not nearly so critical, but it can't hurt. The standard 0.1" center pins of a through hole IC are close enough to spark in my hypothetical example.

 

[Oublie]

Appreciate your advice SiBurning, This will be a point to point voltage multiplier built on some matrix board so nowhere for a spark gap I Hope.