Paint over wire?

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Folsom

Paint over wire?
« on: 5 Dec 2006, 07:01 am »
I am going to try using an un-wound inductor for speaker wire... The DIYaudio forum has great success with it. I am going to try it. I have been considering many things. I found out it would cost $60 to have it laminated (screw that) and taping it is hard in 8-foot strips. What about a flexable, paintable, something, anyone have any ideas?

andyr

Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #1 on: 5 Dec 2006, 07:09 am »
I am going to try using an un-wound inductor for speaker wire... The DIYaudio forum has great success with it. I am going to try it. I have been considering many things. I found out it would cost $60 to have it laminated (screw that) and taping it is hard in 8-foot strips. What about a flexable, paintable, something, anyone have any ideas?
DoS,

Inductor wire (aka "magnet wire") is already coated with an insulator ... so ya don't need to paint it with anything! 

You can buy the same wire in electronic shops - if you have some unused inductors by all means unwind them but otherwise, it's probably cheaper to buy the wire rather than inductors.

I suggest you want to consider the thickness of the inductor wire and whether you should have several strands to make up enough copper thickness.

Regards,

Andy

Folsom

Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #2 on: 5 Dec 2006, 06:23 pm »
The inductor is rated at 500w. It is a big flat tape style. I doubt it is covered because the entire winding has a plastic sheet between layers....

It looks like this http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=255-654&DID=7

andyr

Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #3 on: 5 Dec 2006, 07:39 pm »
The inductor is rated at 500w. It is a big flat tape style. I doubt it is covered because the entire winding has a plastic sheet between layers....

It looks like this http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=255-654&DID=7
Ah ... sorry!   :oops:  You're using a ribbon inductor.  Yes, as you say, they have a plastic insulating tape wound between each layer of copper ribbon.

You could paint it with polyurethane (we call it Estapol over here  :) ) or stick clear packing tape along it.  Or mummy-wrap it with plumber's teflon tape, for the ultimate dielectric.

Regards,

Andy

Folsom

Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #4 on: 5 Dec 2006, 09:23 pm »
Mummy-wrap.... that might be the easier thing to do.... if it is wide tape. Perhaps I will look for some cotton tape or something, hm....

jneutron

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Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #5 on: 6 Dec 2006, 01:04 am »
I am going to try using an un-wound inductor for speaker wire... The DIYaudio forum has great success with it. I am going to try it. I have been considering many things. I found out it would cost $60 to have it laminated (screw that) and taping it is hard in 8-foot strips. What about a flexable, paintable, something, anyone have any ideas?

Dos..

What characteristic impedance are you looking for?

What series resistance?

What capacitance?

Do you know what transfer tape is??

Cheers, John

Folsom

Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #6 on: 6 Dec 2006, 02:46 am »
No to all of the above...

I just thought I would try it because others have had such good luck with it, and the specific inductance measurement I got is what others recomended.

Imperial

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Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #7 on: 7 Dec 2006, 01:54 am »
First I would use Caig Deoxit... Then the sealer, "Shield" its an RFI suppressor in that Shield to!!!
Then I would wrap it in a wide silk ribbon actually.
I would not lacquer or spray it further!!!


Morex silk ribbons most likely!
Then I would use a flax wire to secure it... to lines, counterweave, like on a ballet dancers foot you know.
You can now suspend the thing from the floor by the flaxwire... you made some loops here and there of course...

Oh Baby!  :drool:

Who told me this?
Why, Fluffy...!


 aa observe closely, he ain't smiling that fella...
« Last Edit: 7 Dec 2006, 02:18 am by Imperial »

Daryl

Re: Paint over wire?
« Reply #8 on: 7 Dec 2006, 04:13 am »
Magnet wire?

Holy Cow!

I have recently completed and measured the performance of a very nice piece of speaker wire.

This is more what you might call an anti-wire so to speak.

That is I only built for two reasons.

Number one is all the nonsense that constantly comes up regarding speaker wires often being very expensive, poor performing or ackward/unweildly  and sometimes you even find a combination of very expensive, poor performing and ackward/unweildly.

The second reason is that Parts Express introduced a new Pro speaker wire intended for multi-amp setups which I could see had the potential to be an awesome single channel speaker wire.

Speaker wires like this...

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=100-020

Have exellent performance and aesthetics and are the best deal to be had.

Often boutique and DIY offerings cannot achieve this level of performance.

If you were serious about building a better speaker wire (that is one that actually has lower resistance and inductance) You could build this....


You start with this wire from Parts Express which is quite reasonable (for what it is) at $2.25/ft.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=100-491

Now separate the conductors four to + and four to - (red, yellow, brown and gray to + and blue, green, black and white to -) and strip the ends.

Twist all the strands from all four conductors tightly into one great big perfectly round twisted, stranded conductor (for both + and -).

Then heat the ends and feed solder from every direction until all strands are permeated and solder is wicked clear up under the insulation.

Cut the excess length from the end giving a nice flat end and use a file to file the solder away until you have big copper posts and polish with 400/600 grit sandpaper.

Speaker wire pants are not available (as far as I know, I tried the largest from P.E.) large enough for this wire so I formed the ends into a fork shape and dipped them five times in 'Rubberize It' tool handle dip.

What you have when you are done is a 7awg equivilant speaker wire with lower inductance than you would get from 7awg due to having four separate runs of wire.

The aesthetics are nice, everything is contained in one round black jacket and it is very flexible and limp (will lay flat after it has been coiled).

In the practicality department it is designed for pro use and again it costs only $2.25/ft which is awesome for such an extreme level of performance.

I connected it to my measurement rig with the amplifier end shorted to measure the total impedance it adds to the output impedance of your amplifier including the impedance of the connections at the ends.


I measured the loop impedance and exported it from LMS into LEAP and modeled an inductor/resistor combination that resembled the my measurement as close as possible.

The results are 13.5mohm and .55uh for an 11' piece (about one fifth what you would expect from 14awg zipcord).

Note the scale is milliohms and not ohms as shown on the chart.


Daryl
« Last Edit: 7 Dec 2006, 04:58 am by Daryl »