Chinese sources of cable - are they any good

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

So, I was looking at getting me a good amount of general cable/wire for in the lab - 10 meters or so of various colors and guage. It is hard when shopping around not to notice the quite cheap sources in china. Ofcourse, it will likely be not as good as it claims (not meet its ratings in terms of voltage and such) but it seems like a good source for a first purchase, considering the high cost from local sellers.
Anyone have experience with chinese sources? Did you like what you got? Or perhaps other sources of cable I should consider?

[Kjelt]

If something looks too good to be true............
Actually it depends, if you want 100% copper wires you might have a problem.
The chinese invented the copperclad (Copper with Aluminium) cables and now lately the cables seem even worse to be made from iron with copper layer, they are stiff and magnetic 
So it is a lottery, and communication is difficult since my impression is that a lot of sellers don't know themselves what they are selling.
I just took out my wallet and bought european cables in 8 colors and three sizes in 100m reels.
I do not know how old you are but if you are not almost retired and this is a serious hobby for you it will be a good investment to last the rest of your hobby life.

[sleemanj]

In my opinion, get a box each of good quality silicone high strand count tinned copper 20 AWG, and 24 AWG.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/good-source-for-20awg-silicone-wire/

[SeanB]

Beware that what you get, while described as copper cable, might very well not be. Wrong diameter and number of conductors, wrong thickness of insulation, very poor extrusion of the cable into the insulation, broken strands of inner wire sticking out of the insulation, wire that is not actually copper but is instead either copper coated aluminium or copper plated steel, and very bad wire that breaks easily and which work fractures after a few bending cycles. Then you get plastic that starts off flexible, but after a few weeks loses plasticiser, turns brittle and flakes off the wire inner at the slightest movement. Others just crumble away with time.

[IconicPCB]

Here is a source of quality wire and cable in eastern europe... low price Din specs

http://www.novkabel.com/en/index/index.html

[3roomlab]

So, I was looking at getting me a good amount of general cable/wire for in the lab - 10 meters or so of various colors and guage. It is hard when shopping around not to notice the quite cheap sources in china. Ofcourse, it will likely be not as good as it claims (not meet its ratings in terms of voltage and such) but it seems like a good source for a first purchase, considering the high cost from local sellers.
Anyone have experience with chinese sources? Did you like what you got? Or perhaps other sources of cable I should consider?

I have tried some cheap ones, they are not of the standard expected resistivity.

from "good" cable catalogs, i made some calculations as copper resistivity is a known constant. Most good cables have resistivity around 17.6 to 21 nano-ohm.m depending on stranding. finer strands = lousier.

the majority of the crappier china cables are over 28, some "shop" do seem to publicize actual resistivity spec of good cables at around 19 to 21 n-ohm.m, but i have yet the chance to try those.

And all of those which i found to say they have the right resistivity numbers, are selling hardcore cables for welding and pure copper braids (4mm to 25mm ++ stuff). i would say 9 out of 10 do not state specs.

very few sellers claim to be "guo biao" or china standard and also state ohm/km which result in correct nano-ohm.m, these which i stumble upon are also marked as "AGR" standard (silicone). branded means nothing, eg : AMASS cables for RC are not all proper, the higher gauges seem correct in resistivity (AWG 6 or less), but the smaller gauges have the "lousier" resistivity worse than 28, some reaching 34n-ohm.m. so it also casts some doubt if every spec featured is real or fake? so in general, id say 19 out of 20 do not state specs or have poor specs.

i use a small test batch of AWG 18 at 31n-ohm.m, i find the 18AWG silicone fine strand cables to be still useful and good resistance to soldering heat. so i think the application vs cost is going to need some weighing, they are worth it in non-critical areas.

i think most connection cables are rated 80C, these are grossly unsuitable for soldering. so those cheap china poor resistivity silicone cables are where they do well, no shrink no melt even when your fingers get burnt and i managed to re-use them again and again.

[4CX35000]

One good sign of low quality wire is the insulation melts or shrinks when soldering.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

Ok, so it seems china-sourced cables are no longer on the table.

I just took out my wallet and bought european cables in 8 colors and three sizes in 100m reels.
I do not know how old you are but if you are not almost retired and this is a serious hobby for you it will be a good investment to last the rest of your hobby life.

The problem for me now is that I don't have the money to do this (or rather, to warrant me doing this). I have only a few hundred euros per year I can afford to spend on my electronics hobby (if that) so spending a good portion of that on cable is for now not a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I was hoping to get a few tends of meters to last me a untill I finish my Masters, and hopefully start having an income. Hence also why I wasn't looking at silicone wire yet, it's not worth it for me.

Thanks already for the input everyone. I'll have to look at some other options, or perhaps just accept that I'll have to do without a good supply and just get red and black for now.

[Ratch]

Need I say anymore?

Ratch

[edavid]

One good sign of low quality wire is the insulation melts or shrinks when soldering.

No, that just means it has standard PVC insulation.  If you want non-melting insulation, look for teflon, silicone, or UL-1061 (SRPVC) insulation.

[macboy]

I bought a few different gauges and colors of silicone insulated wire from this seller:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1851538
The insulation really is silicone (it doesn't melt with soldering iron) rather than soft PVC, and the resistance of the wire is measured to be as expected for the gauge. This is some nice very high strand count, tinned, super-flexible wire. It will make for some really great jumper wires for the lab when I get around to building them. I also added to my order some adhesive-wall 4:1 heatshrink and some silicone heat shrink and both lived up to expectations. I have no association with the seller other than being a happy customer.

[4CX35000]

VERY low quality PVC as I have soldered plenty of wires in my time and never seen insulation shrink as much as the cheap Chinese wires. Taught me a lesson and from now on I only buy wire from a main seller such as Mouser, RS Components, Rapid and so on. Worth the effort and expense for that extra level of quality.

[polli]

Need I say anymore?

Ratch

That gamma x bicycle would seem to be chinese: http://www.gammaxbicycle.com/

[batteksystem]

Buy silicone wires. The interesting thing about made in China is that we make good things, and bad things. Unfortunately, due to the need of the market, bad things prevail. However, when you move higher to the more premium range, things start to change -- you still get the low labor cost and almost zero IP cost, but pinching every penny on raw material isn't that important anymore due to higher margin.

Therefore, when buying from China with unknown source, always buy the mid-low range -- high end doesn't worth your risk unless from a well known supplier, and low end is almost 90% crap and 10% good stuff.

Or I would say, 1% good stuff.

[bd139]

Try Thailand instead!

I've found the stuff from Tayda is actually really good quality. It is actually solid copper core, conforms to spec and the insulation doesn't disappear when you look at it. You can buy it per foot as well. With a pair of idea T strippers I can do some real neat work with this stuff.

http://www.taydaelectronics.com/hardware/cable-wire.html

They have data sheets as well. Both the stranded and solid is really good. They even bother to print the type of wire on the wire itself.

It's not the cheapest stuff out there but it's worth it and a lot better quality than the 100m spools of 7/0.2 own brand etc you get from the main retailers (RS/Farnell/Rapid) here in the UK which appears just to be custom branded shit.