PTFE covered wire

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I imported lots of teflon wire from China. 20 gauge and 16. some of the teflon is single strand excellent for wiring heaters and just about anything.
I would not use anything else, so easy to use.
Some of the makers have very high MOQ's. i had to order 3 kilometers of each type some have MOQ's of 100 kilometers.
Phil
 
. . . The great thing is the insulation does not melt ot shrink back when you tine a wire . . . .
The insulation is typically thinner than PVC for the same voltage rating so you can pack more conductors into a smaller cross-sectional area. Aside from higher cost (at least twice as much as PVC), the main disadvantage is that it takes practice and good tools to cleanly strip the PTFE insulation. And, it's more difficult to form into bundles with neat bends, or twist into pairs.

... or rip up old aerospace and army boatanchors. I've got a lifetime supply of short lengths silvered multi strand.
I have saved a few wire bundles from scrapped equipment for general purpose use. Like you say, the wires won't be very long and you can't be particular about insulation color or wire gauge.

Dale
 
Farnell and RS sell it Ian:
Thanks for the pointer. I already tried CPC but their range is limited

Unfortunately, as soon as you add PTFE as the insulator there are only a couple available in reels as short as 25ft and they are about £1 a foot in price. If you select 25m then there are over 100 choices; restrict this to 26AWG and there are 18 - still a good choice. There's even the pink I remember from my British Aerospace days. There is even a load by Brand Rex which is a name I remember well.

It is still £10 to £15 a reel so I'll need to restrict the colour range.

Thanks mate.

Cheers

Ian
 
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No worries Ian, as for stripping it the strippers we used in my apprenticeship at Smiths were these Ideal ones:

Stripmaster Wire Stripper Stripmaster Wire Stripper - Precisision Hand Tools - IDEAL INDUSTRIES

There are cheaper Chinese coppies on Ebay:

AUTOMATIC WIRE STRIPPER HEAVY DUTY DIY HAND TOOL | eBay

I managed to get a pair that came with multiple different blades/jaws from China after my genuine Ideals were stolen on a job.

This chap sells PTFE wire on ebay if you want shorter lengths:

PTFE Teflon sleeving tubing 0.8mm internal bore 0.3mm thick 1.5m length items in Hollow State Electronics store on eBay!

Bit pricey though.

Cheers
Matt.
 
One wonders how 'over the top' the choice of wire insulation can get.

There'd almost need to be a fire under the chassis top to need wiring rated for higher than 90C. Resistors would typically be derating from 70C, and although non-electrolytics would typically be ok up to 85-90C, an electrolytic anywhere in the vicinity and the amp would start flailing pretty soon.

And voltages above 400V are pretty limited in their location to mainly the rectifier area and output stage.

If the amp was going to stress parts and wiring with significantly higher temperature than something like 60-70C due to faulty parts, then maybe the protection methodology needs to be looked at closer.
 
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