Solid Vs. Stranded Wire

[darren wilson]

I generally have a preference for solid core wire, because i find it easier to work with. However, i just learned today that stranded wire is better suited to guitar applications because it has lower DC resistance than solid wire of the same gauge:

Resistance can be minimized by using large gauge stranded electrical wire ( 10 gauge instead of 16 gauge and stranded wire instead of solid wire). Electricity moves along the surface of a wire. Therefore, the more surface area a wire has ...... ie...... more thin strands braided into one wire...... the less of a traffic jam those little electrons incounter or in other words..... less resistance.

Whaddaya know!

Generally, 22 gauge stranded copper wire is recommended for guitar wiring.

Just thought i'd share.

[frank falbo]

That's kind of something I've always known, but I always forget WHY I know it. Then every once in awhile I'm reminded about why it's true, and I'll forget in a couple years again.

[marksound]

It's like 22 ga wire is a standard, right? Like "Stardust' or "Freebird.'

[Paul Marossy]

Interesting. I don't know that it matters much for a piece of wire that is only a 3 to 4 inches long, though.

[TeiscosRock]

Stranded wire is also alot stronger than solid-core Easier to yoink a solid-core wire out than it is to yoink stranded wires out.

[lovekraft]

Resistance can be minimized by using large gauge stranded electrical wire...

That's true, especially at high (MHz) frequencies and at high (KA) current levels (it's called the "Skin Effect") - of course, like a lot of other supposed audio "problems", in practice it's a difference that makes no difference. Try it for yourself - cut a 12 ft (or 3.6576 meters, if you're metric) piece of 22 gauge wire (stranded or solid - it doesn't matter) and measure its resistance with the highest precision digital ohmmeter you can find. The result should immediately explain why it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. If you need a hint, compare it to the resistance of a standard volume pot. Even if solid wire has twice the resistance of stranded (and it doesn't - not even close), how much impact will it have in series with a 250K pot?

Darren, go ahead and use solid wire if it's easier for you to work with - no one will ever know the difference without looking inside. TiescosRock, is there normally a lot of yoinking going on inside your control cavity?

[jnewman]

While it's true that a higher guage wire has lower resistance... stranded vs. solid core doesn't come into play with regards to the skin effect, because the individual strands are not insulated. Not being insulated, they're in constant electrical contact with each other all the way down the line, and so are effectively (to a close enough degree that it doesn't matter) electrically equivalent.

The skin effect occurs because electrons repel each other, so they move as far away from each other as possible. Electrons repel each other across an entire stranded wire just as well as across a solid wire, and so they stay skinned on the outside surface of the entire cable with stranded wire as well as solid wire.

[jamesj]

Resistance can be minimized by using large gauge stranded electrical wire...

That's true, especially at high (MHz) frequencies and at high (KA) current levels (it's called the "Skin Effect") - of course, like a lot of other supposed audio "problems", in practice it's a difference that makes no difference. Try it for yourself - cut a 12 ft (or 3.6576 meters, if you're metric) piece of 22 gauge wire (stranded or solid - it doesn't matter) and measure its resistance with the highest precision digital ohmmeter you can find. The result should immediately explain why it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. If you need a hint, compare it to the resistance of a standard volume pot. Even if solid wire has twice the resistance of stranded (and it doesn't - not even close), how much impact will it have in series with a 250K pot?

Darren, go ahead and use solid wire if it's easier for you to work with - no one will ever know the difference without looking inside. TiescosRock, is there normally a lot of yoinking going on inside your control cavity?

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If that so then why are pickups not wound with a 10 gauge wire?

[jnewman]

Because with 10 gauge wire, you could have about two loops around the pickup. Resistance is not important in a pickup coil. What IS important is the number of loops.

Here's how a pickup actually works: The magnets make a fixed magnetic field. The strings vibrate through said magnetic field, which gives the strings a changing magnetic flux and induces a current IN THE STRINGS. That induced current in the strings then generates a changing magnetic field on top of the static one. The coils of the pickup have a current induced by the changing magnetic flux generated by the induced current in the strings, and that current is what goes to the amp.

The current induced in a coil is proportional to the number of loops in the coil and the magnetic flux in the interior of the coil and has NOTHING to do with the resistance of the wire. This comes from Stokes' law, which in this case says that the line integral of the curl of the magnetic flux around the coil is proportional to the integral of magnetic flux through the coil itself. Adding extra loops means the flux isn't enclosed once, it's enclosed as many times as there are loops - making five thousand loops instead of one is the same as making the flux five thousand times stronger with a single loop.

The magnetic flux created by the induced currents in the moving guitar string are TINY. A single loop of wire enclosing that flux would generate such a tiny induced voltage (on the order of a tenth of a millivolt, perhaps). Moving to, say, five thousand loops multiplies that induced voltage by five thousand, up to something on the order of a volt, a usable voltage that can be transmitted down a guitar cord to an amplifier and amplified without too much background noise.

You need a TON of loops to have a coil sensitive enough to pick up the tiny magnetic field flux generated by the moving strings - so you need to use thousands of wraps of tiny wire. Having one loop of really thick wire simply does not work.

Edited September 30, 2005 by jnewman

[jamesj]

Because with 10 gauge wire, you could have about two loops around the pickup. Resistance is not important in a pickup coil. What IS important is the number of loops.

Here's how a pickup actually works: The magnets make a fixed magnetic field. The strings vibrate through said magnetic field, which gives the strings a changing magnetic flux and induces a current IN THE STRINGS. That induced current in the strings then generates a changing magnetic field on top of the static one. The coils of the pickup have a current induced by the changing magnetic flux generated by the induced current in the strings, and that current is what goes to the amp.

The current induced in a coil is proportional to the number of loops in the coil and the magnetic flux in the interior of the coil and has NOTHING to do with the resistance of the wire. This comes from Stokes' law, which in this case says that the line integral of the curl of the magnetic flux around the coil is proportional to the integral of magnetic flux through the coil itself. Adding extra loops means the flux isn't enclosed once, it's enclosed as many times as there are loops - making five thousand loops instead of one is the same as making the flux five thousand times stronger with a single loop.

The magnetic flux created by the induced currents in the moving guitar string are TINY. A single loop of wire enclosing that flux would generate such a tiny induced voltage (on the order of a tenth of a millivolt, perhaps). Moving to, say, five thousand loops multiplies that induced voltage by five thousand, up to something on the order of a volt, a usable voltage that can be transmitted down a guitar cord to an amplifier and amplified without too much background noise.

You need a TON of loops to have a coil sensitive enough to pick up the tiny magnetic field flux generated by the moving strings - so you need to use thousands of wraps of tiny wire. Having one loop of really thick wire simply does not work.

←

That makes sense to me but.... Pickups have the Resistance on them not the number of wraps, Also older pickups used thicker wire than new ones. most likley the wrap thing you spoke of. All In all from a working mans veiw the solid wire is "brittle" compared to stranded, it is stiff and hard to work with, when it breaks its broke, stranded is " more versatile, it handles movment better. It is a better choice for "vibrating" applications. Thats why its used in cars, motorcycles, etc. In a guitar .... who knows, the run is short, I personally use automotive wire it seems to be more "workable" to me.

[1guitarslinger]

Lovekraft, please correct me if I'm wrong. If I remember correctly, capacitance increases as the wire diameter increases. So using wire much thicker than needed can cause problems, including phasing issues with some frequencies. This would be more of an issue with long guitar cables, and speaker cables.

I always thought the main reason for using stranded wire versus solid was that it was less likely to break due to vibration. It's much easier to break a solid wire by bending back and forth a few times than stranded.

[fryovanni]

Because with 10 gauge wire, you could have about two loops around the pickup. Resistance is not important in a pickup coil. What IS important is the number of loops.

Here's how a pickup actually works: The magnets make a fixed magnetic field. The strings vibrate through said magnetic field, which gives the strings a changing magnetic flux and induces a current IN THE STRINGS. That induced current in the strings then generates a changing magnetic field on top of the static one. The coils of the pickup have a current induced by the changing magnetic flux generated by the induced current in the strings, and that current is what goes to the amp.

The current induced in a coil is proportional to the number of loops in the coil and the magnetic flux in the interior of the coil and has NOTHING to do with the resistance of the wire. This comes from Stokes' law, which in this case says that the line integral of the curl of the magnetic flux around the coil is proportional to the integral of magnetic flux through the coil itself. Adding extra loops means the flux isn't enclosed once, it's enclosed as many times as there are loops - making five thousand loops instead of one is the same as making the flux five thousand times stronger with a single loop.

The magnetic flux created by the induced currents in the moving guitar string are TINY. A single loop of wire enclosing that flux would generate such a tiny induced voltage (on the order of a tenth of a millivolt, perhaps). Moving to, say, five thousand loops multiplies that induced voltage by five thousand, up to something on the order of a volt, a usable voltage that can be transmitted down a guitar cord to an amplifier and amplified without too much background noise.

You need a TON of loops to have a coil sensitive enough to pick up the tiny magnetic field flux generated by the moving strings - so you need to use thousands of wraps of tiny wire. Having one loop of really thick wire simply does not work.

←

That makes sense to me but.... Pickups have the Resistance on them not the number of wraps, Also older pickups used thicker wire than new ones. most likley the wrap thing you spoke of. All In all from a working mans veiw the solid wire is "brittle" compared to stranded, it is stiff and hard to work with, when it breaks its broke, stranded is " more versatile, it handles movment better. It is a better choice for "vibrating" applications. Thats why its used in cars, motorcycles, etc. In a guitar .... who knows, the run is short, I personally use automotive wire it seems to be more "workable" to me.

←

Jason is correct, and you are also correct that pickups are rated by resistance. The higher the resistance the longer the wire(or more wraps) and thus more windings produce higher output. If you thought of a pickup as a load then higher resistance would have a lower output, but this is not the case. If you are mainly concerned about resistance focus on your connections as that will be the weak link so to speak. The currecnt that is carried by guitar conductors is very low and resistance of the wire is a lot less of an issue. Real world- use solid or stranded just make good connections. Technically the best wire to carry high currents would be stranded and would also be more durable(that is why they use very thin standed wire for welding cable).

Peace,Rich

[lovekraft]

If I remember correctly, capacitance increases as the wire diameter increases.

Well, strictly speaking, a single conductor exhibits no measurable capacitance - coax can exhibit capacitance between the two conductors, and a wire might show some parasitic capacitance if it's run close to another conductor or a ground plane, but these are still third or fourth order effects in this application.

We're making molehills out of molecules, to misquote the old phrase - besides, even if a perfect pristine signal comes out of the guitar, the first thing most of us are going to do with that signal is dump it into a micely non-linear tube amp and start messing with the timbre and harmonic content - it hardly makes sense to micro-manage a signal that's going to get deliberately mangled almost immediately. This ain't audiophile world, and it's not physics class either - time to stop obsessing about things that make little or no difference and build some guitars in the real world. You guys worry too much! I somehow doubt that Leo Fender spent nights lying awake worrying about component specs - he used what was cheap and easily accessible, and managed to build some great sounding guitars - let us go forth and do likewise!

[1guitarslinger]

We're making molehills out of molecules

Agreed.

[jnewman]

All In all from a working mans veiw the solid wire is "brittle" compared to stranded, it is stiff and hard to work with, when it breaks its broke, stranded is " more versatile, it handles movment better. It is a better choice for "vibrating" applications. Thats why its used in cars, motorcycles, etc. In a guitar .... who knows, the run is short, I personally use automotive wire it seems to be more "workable" to me.

←

Hey, don't get me wrong... I wasn't arguing against stranded, it's what I prefer to use, too - it's just not a lot better than solid core wire from an electrical point of view. Mechanically, absolutely .