Best place to buy 14 gauge stranded wire?

Any marine supply store..very high quality and pre tinned.

Digikey has 100 ft reels of stranded copper 14 AWG Alpha brand wire for 162 bucks. Pre tinned is 191 bucks. Untinned pure copper is easy to solder.  They have most all colors. Alpha is high quality, been around for years. Compare to other sources.

Pete

Del City:  I have not used these guys, but I was impressed with the number of colors they had available. Most others seemed to offer 4-6 but these guys had many.  I found them via a supplier of wire for RVs.

Intuitively speaking, running wire through the space occupied by an RV where each wire performs a very specific task, is highly analogous to our purpose.

Wiring Products:  This supplier also looks like an option.

Full disclosure: I have not purchased from either of these guys.  I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts.

Steven J. Serenska

Unfortunately the Big Box stores have the wire in 500 ft. reels.   Smaller some times.   You should also be able to find number books 1 to 45  to mark both ends of the wire.   I used a lot of Black and White (14 ga) single strand for track feed circuits.  Most control wiring, switches etc. was 18 ga solid thermostat wire. Combination cables with a brown cover, (2) conductor all the way up to (10) conductor.

You may want to consider modular construction.  The Fort Pitt Highrailer's modules, usually are here for me to wire, I find wiring on a ladder more comfortable.

My friend, Tom B's layout, done the same way. 

Recently used these two corner modules on a display for the Fourth of July Festival, Ellwood City, PA.

Gargraves track, switches, and Ross Switches pictured are used.   Modular construction is done with 1" X 4" good quality pine framing/ 1/4" luan board deck.  Glued and screwed together.   

Well.....OGR has it available at reasonable prices..100 foot lengths, 14 gauge stranded!!

Alan

The farm stores, Farm and Fleet here, have 14 ga copper stranded primary wire in 7 different colors for about $15 per 100 foot roll. They call it "Deka Spooled 14 Gauge Primary Wire". That's probably what you want price, quality, voltage rating, color, size of spool, stranded, copper.

Be careful of the speaker wire that is actually copper coated aluminum wire. It is good wire but you should go up a gauge when sizing it since it has more resistance per foot.

PLCProf posted:

cjack posted:

 

Be careful of the speaker wire that is actually copper coated aluminum wire. It is good wire but you should go up a gauge when sizing it since it has more resistance per foot.

Interesting. I will test the stuff I have, if it is copper-clad aluminum I never noticed. Guess a low-ohms test is in order.

I've generally seen it in the black/red speaker zip wire, but anymore with the copper prices, it seems you have to carefully inspect the wire to tell. If you search the specifications, there is usually some tell like cu/al or some such. When you cut the zip wire, I have some, you can see a bright center in the strands. As I said, it is good wire and cheaper but I did have to consider going up in gauge.

Wow, what a wealth of information. Many thanks to all of you. Wiring, electricity and control is my weakest area and if it was not for the help of amazing OGR people, the only thing that would run on my layout would be my tears.

MikeCT: I am building in modular form and I am absolutely desperate to avoid the mistakes I made on the previous Munoz Lines. Perhaps you and I can chat about how to bring me into the real world.

Thanks guys !!

No it does not, I use this stuff all the time and it works really well. its really flexible and easy to work with. 

NTE Parts Direct:  have been getting all my wire from these people, They have a large selection of sizes and colors and also have shrink tubing in lots of sizes and colors but is on the pricey side however it is all copper.

Eliot:  Trip north to Boston, late Sept, will give you a call.    Mike CT

Matt Makens posted:

No it does not, I use this stuff all the time and it works really well. its really flexible and easy to work with. 

The rating is CCA in the specifications.

From Wiki:

"

Wire material[edit]

Use of copper or copper-clad aluminum (CCA) is more or less universal for speaker wire. Copper has low resistance compared to most other suitable materials. CCA is cheaper and lighter, at the expense of somewhat higher resistance (about the same as copper two AWG numbers up). Copper and aluminum both oxidize, but oxides of copper are conductive, while those of aluminum are insulating. Also offered is Oxygen-free Copper (OFC), sold in several grades. The various grades are marketed as having better conductivity and durability, but they have no significant benefit in audio applications.^[4] Commonly available C11000 Electrolytic-Tough-Pitch (ETP) copper wire is identical to higher-cost C10200 Oxygen-Free (OF) copper wire in speaker cable applications. Much more expensive C10100, a highly refined copper with silver impurities removed and oxygen reduced to 0.0005 percent, has only a one percent increase in conductivity rating, insignificant in audio applications.^[4]

Silver has a slightly lower resistivity than copper, which allows a thinner wire to have the same resistance. Silver is expensive, so a copper wire with the same resistance costs considerably less. Silver tarnishes to form a thin surface layer of silver sulfide.

Gold has a higher resistivity than either copper or silver, but pure gold does not oxidize, so it can be used for plating wire-end terminations"

I'm not saying don't use it or it's not good, but just understand what it is and adjust your gauge accordingly.

Home Depot has 14 gauge copper wire for 4.28 100, roll

Ken M

Our whole layout is wired with the OGR 14 gauge, twisted-pair, stranded wire. After much searching, I could find NOTHING better! 

What about :  

Or any other local hardware store.

Quick check on wire prices.  Local electrical supply. 

12 THHN Stranded $82.91 per thousand   .083 per foot.  (500 ft rolls)

14 THHN Stranded $54.04 per thousand   .054 per foot. (500 ft rolls)

18/2 (2 conductor) thermostat wire $93.84 per thousand.   .094 per foot.  (500 ft rolls)  Larger stat wire (18/5 or more) can be had in 250 ft rolls.

In most cases solid wire is 10% cheaper.

I use 3 types of wire.  14 gauge stranded for power feed and track connections.  18 gauge solid for most everything else.  IMO solid wire connections are easier to make than strained.  Flexible 18 gauge stranded for interfaces with physical movement like hinged control panels.  I buy the 14 gauge stranded in 500 ft rolls from Home Depot and the  18  gauge solid from Allied in 1000 ft rolls.  The flexible 18 gauge I buy from Allied in 100 ft rolls.  My experience is wire doesn't go very far.  I have a 10 x 20 ft layout with at least a mile of wire installed and my DCS work fine.  My interconnects are made using barrier strips and spade lugs.  The lugs eliminate a lot of soldering and modifications/troubleshooting is easier.

The OGR wire is very good wire. Available in #14 and #16. It is similar to the speaker wire shown in PLCPROF's post above, except it has a gray outer jacket and is all copper, no aluminum. I used the OGR wire on my layout, good quality stuff. I also wired my layout for DCS (TIU to terminal blocks then on to track blocks). I added Legacy afterward with just a one wire connection to all my TIU outputs.

I used thermostat wire from Home Depot for all my switches, lighting and accessories. It's #18 solid and is available in 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 (and maybe more) conductors. I used colored tape and write on wire tags to help ID the different wires. Similar to what Mike CT says above. I really wanted stranded wire for this, but after using the solid wire it turned out to be better and was a lot easier to terminate on screw terminals and other things I used it for. It is readily available, copper and fairly inexpensive as well. 

If you want to use single conductor #14 wire, I would try to find MTW (Machine Tool Wire) instead of the THHN that Home Depot and other places sell. MTW is much more pliable and easier to tidy up after it's run in an open environment with just loops, rings, one hole straps or whatever you use to hold it up. The THHN is a fairly unruly when run in this manner, it's more for installation in conduit.

Usually Home Depot or Lowes have 14 gauge wire at a good price. There is no real difference between solid or stranded wire in current capacity.

Speaker wire in the correct size has the same current carrying ability, only thing is it is labelled differently or in 2 wires close to each other, and may cost more because of being labelled different.

Lee Fritz

I can tell you from first hand experience that some CCAG (copper coated aluminum) wire does NOT perform like real copper wire.  I got some test leads of eBay that I discovered were CCAG wire, they were lousy for any decent measurement.  They had way too much resistance to measure low value ohms at all.  I've also had difficulties soldering CCAG wire, so my money is on pure copper for any wire I use.

For modules I only use Anderson power poles  15/30/45 rating.  Available in 12 colors to match the wire. Makes service very easy.

Most cases.  Aluminum or Copper Clad Aluminum wire has to be two sizes larger for the same ampacity as copper conductor. 

14 gauge copper   =  12 gauge aluminum.   

All wire on my layout is solid copper.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I can tell you from first hand experience that some CCAG (copper coated aluminum) wire does NOT perform like real copper wire.  I got some test leads of eBay that I discovered were CCAG wire, they were lousy for any decent measurement.  They had way too much resistance to measure low value ohms at all.  I've also had difficulties soldering CCAG wire, so my money is on pure copper for any wire I use.

Well..it's all about the resistance of the wire. 14 ga copper is about 2.5 ohms/1000 feet and 14 ga CCA is about 4 ohms/1000 feet. So just know what it is and where you are using it. Test leads for low ohms is probably the best place.

Soldering should be about the same unless the copper was oxidized (old wire) or had the copper scraped off. There is 15% and 10% CCA, although the resistance is not significantly different between the two, it may be easier to scrape the copper off the 10%.

Monoprice has wire and nice banana plugs.

Wire and Cable Your Way:  I have used these guys in the past for my job:

14AWG MTW (machine tool wire) is pretty good for model railroading. You can also choose number of strands, 41 strand is very flexible.

I believe these guys used to be called Wire To Go.

Try Bulk Wire.com.   Cheers Don

Strange name for this place, but I have used them for many years.  Met them at a Goodguys car show in which theywere a custom wiring harness manufacturer.  Many sizes and colors at exceptional prices...7-12 cents per foot.  It is placed on rolls in the length you request 100, 200,500 feet.  The name of the company is Ties 4 Less out of?Loveland, Colorado.  I have gotten10-15 different colors of 14-16-18 gauge, and single, double, triple, or quad color stranded wires in 100-200 foot rolls.  Very good service and quick delivery.

First of all, I wish I had the time to thank each of you personally, for taking the time to help an electrical "Know nothing." Perhaps the irony of all of this is that my son, David, is a senior electrical engineer. I know, I know, call your son !! It is not as easy as that . . . . . sigh.

Thank you all for the help. I should add my first goal is to figure out my first steps. I am starting another thread for that.

Thanks, PLCPROF, MikeCt, Norm C., Ogre, DMASSO, RXR, CJACK, TomTee, Willy G, Norton and my apologies to anyone that I have left out. Love all of you.

Eliot

I got all my 14 gauge stranded along with other gauge stranded wire from https://www.waytekwire.com/  .....Paul