Hello.

Hello, I’m shopping around for hook-up wire for my digital model railroad layout and there seems to be a big discrepancy in pricing among different suppliers on the internet. I can get a 100' roll of 20 awg tinned copper for $12 from one reputable supplier. Another, very large well know supplier, I can only find it for over $50 for 100'.

Not really sure what I should be looking at spec wise or if it matters for our model railroad applications.

It's a big discrepancy and I'm concerned about buying something too cheap and not any good, or expensive and being over kill.

Any thoughts welcomed.




Thank you.

Hi,

Digikey in US have some good deals if you buy in bulk, and generally of high quality.

Brgds Lasse

In low voltage applications the stranded wire is better than solid. If you are using 18 AWG or thinner it is recommended to use stranded unless you are using accurate insulator strippers. Solid wire that is pinched, by not using proper insulation strippers can often be pinched, creating a weak point and snap potential. The wire may snap in a manner to create intermittent connectivity which is a pain on layouts.

100' for $50... are you talking about Newark? I checked element14.com which is partnered with Newark and filtered down the stranded wire 20ga and found theirs was at that price. I would say any stranded copper wire would work just fine... the color choices have more impact (to facilitate preventing errors and debugging) than the insulation, in our hobby. If DigiKey is cheaper, go with them, though looking there 100' of blue stranded bare copper wire was $60. The DelCity source for primary wire blue 20ga stranded copper at $7.50 seems like a bargain indeed, and comes in all the needed colors:
https://www.delcity.net/...t_1.n_y.jsp?item=1120103

My guess is delcity is much more focused on one type of product range, while the bigger variety houses have such a big inventory, their overhead is higher, and the wire from then is more specialty, vs just focusing on automotive.