Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [wire]

A length of conductive material used as a conductor of electricity.

A wire may consist of one or more strands of conductive material (often copper, but also aluminum, silver, gold, etc.) woven or twisted together to conduct electricity. May also have a dielectric insulator.

Sometimes erroneously referred to as a "cable," which typically consists of several electrically isolated wires in a shared insulator or jacket.

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Why would clipping a wire cause a bomb to explode?

There are a lot of movies and video games that depict defusing bombs, most of which boils down to picking the right color wire. Something like this: Now, that's a part I don't understand. simulate this circuit – Schematic created using…
yuritsuki
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Does wire color matter in electronics?

I'm fairly new to electronics here. But I can't seem to find any clear answer anywhere on the internet. Are wires special depending on their color? Or they have all the same purpose with just colors to define them so people won't get confused? Say I…
William Gregorio
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Standard wire colors

I am fairly new to "electrical" engineering as a hobby/ past time. I have always loved electricity and have made simple circuits since I was a little baby. I am now working on one of my first arduino projects and I started thinking about what…
Sponge Bob
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Tips for keeping lots of cables tidy

I'm working on a project with a lot of external peripherals, so this means lots of wires. Any recommendations on how to keep them tidy while working on it? I don't want to use cable ties just yet, as I need to keep moving them so would have to keep…
Dean
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Name of very thin wires with insulation removed with soldering iron

Last time I visited my PCB manufacturer to do some modifications on a prototype PCB, they used some very thin wire (probably something like AWG 30-35) where they just burned away the insulation with the soldering iron. Is there a name for such…
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Why is this complex shaped wire used to connect two catenary systems in OHE?

While studying about overhead equipment I came across this video. The below image taken from the video shows a G-jumper. The electric connection can be made using simple wire without any twist. Why is this complex shaped wire used to connect these…
mech_duck
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power cable: more strands, or bigger strands?

I have two types of 4awg wire to chose from to wire an inverter in my jeep. One of them has about a dozen 20awg wires inside of it, and the other has about 100 super little wires inside of it. Both are copper. Which would be the better one to…
Sponge Bob
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Stiff, straight wire similar to LED legs

I'm planning on building another LED cube. I've built ones before using tinned 0.6mm copper wire which looked OK, however the wire bent easily and was never quite straight in the first place. I spent a long time searching for some sort of stiff,…
Bojangles
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Is silver actually used for coating copper wire?

I heard stranded copper wire would be silver-coated for better conductivity at high frequencies (skin effect). But silver is at least an order of magnitude more expensive than copper, yet only has 5% more conductivity. Is silver actually used for…
radagast
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What material are the thin, colored wires in my headphone cable?

My broken headphones have different colored wires. Are the red, green and blue wires all copper? The colored wire is wrapped around a white thread.
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Why do some wires in my turntable have plastic covers over them?

I recently purchased a turntable. I spent a good chuck of cash on it - and it sounds great but has trouble keeping speed. I am starting to retrofit it with a brush less motor that will be controlled by an Arduino. When I opened it up the first…
Sponge Bob
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How to calculate voltage drop across multiple wire gauges?

This seems like a googleable question, but I simply cannot come across anything. I'm working on a 12v system (aluminum boat), trying to supply power to a motor 12ft away from the circuit breaker. Through online sources, I was able to determine that…
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Do wires go bad?

I was working on an electronics project today and tried powering it with a battery but nothing happened and the battery was new. I eventually used my multimeter and read no voltage at the output of the wires and after measuring the resistance it was…
import_hill
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Find location of wire break in low voltage wire buried in garden grass

I have a Flymo 1200R robotic grass lawn mower. The auto mower detects the boundary position of the edge of the lawn through a low voltage electrical wire that is buried close to the lawn edge which emits some sort of electrical field that the auto…
Kes
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Stiff, shape-retaining insulated wires vs "floppy" ones which "bounce back" - are there actual technical terms for those two types?

Pretty much what the questions says. I find myself in need of some wires and I want to get the "floppy" ones, but I realised I don't know what the actual technical term for it is and so I don't know what to search for. Also, while we are at it - is…
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