Thread: Adelaide cable suppliers?

I'm after some various coloured wire to make a harness. All Supercheap, Autobarn, et Al, have is the usual red, green, blue, black, brown, yellow, I need a bigger variety. Anyone know of a supplier in Adelaide.

One way around this is to colour code cable ends using 5mm segments of different coloured heat shrink. Then you can use pairs or even threes of different colours to give you an endless supply of colours.

Originally Posted by Hoggo1951

I'm after some various coloured wire to make a harness. All Supercheap, Autobarn, et Al, have is the usual red, green, blue, black, brown, yellow, I need a bigger variety. Anyone know of a supplier in Adelaide.

Depending upon what gauge of wire you want, a salvaged printer cable is good but the newer ones tend to be quite thin. The old non molded plugs ones are better.

A couple of metres of 8 or ten core, 0.5 mm will give you all eight or ten colours !

We use Ashdown Ingram for all our electrical needs. They're based at 36-38 Cawthorne St Thebarton SA 5031 Ph: 08 8257 2345
Here's a link to their wiring page, they can supply all sorts of electrical automotive components,
https://view.publitas.com/ashdown-in...5/page/152-153
HTH
Kryn

How many colours a gauge do you need?

https://www.digikey.com.au/en/produc...ductid=6198258

2 questions: Purpose and Gauge or rough idea of the amp ratings required?

Stranded silicone cables are my favourite if you can find and afford them because they are flexible and the insulation is usually heat resistant rated upto 200 degC.

I dislike and avoid PVC coated cables unless I need solid core.

I tend to use silicone wire where ever I can.

Salvaging wire from electronics is a great option but recent models usually come with either ribbon cables or PVC wires. Not the quality silicone cables.

Trip to auto wreckers and pick up a wiring loom, a damaged one will do and should be cheap enough.
Strip and use individual cable as required.

All fixed, thanks chaps.

Originally Posted by Hoggo1951

All fixed, thanks chaps.

well tell us how you fixed ...?? did you find a supplier?

Seven core trailer cable. As I'm using aftermarket headlight, tail light, handlebar switch gear, indicators, et al, none of the colours match.

So I've gone with two harnesses, one for lights, the other for ignition, horn, indicator flasher unit and solenoid, that cuts down on the number of colours required as I can use the same colours in each harness. Two harnesses makes fault finding easier and I don't have a great bundle of wires wrapped up together snaking it's way around the frame, space for the loom is limited in places. Two looms makes it a lot easier, just six wires in each harness, the wiring is a simplified system I drew up. The ignition harness only has six for the first 300mm, the remaining length only has three.

I've re soldered new wires onto the tail light to accord with the harness colours, I'll do the same with the handlebar switchgear, where required. nothing I can do about the headlight or indicators as they are sealed units.

Previously, I had made up two harnesses of the same design, everything worked fine but as I used 3mm cable wrapped in plastic insulation tape the harnesses were stiff and thick. The new harnesses use 2.5mm cable and are wrapped in cloth tape so are they are both supple, thin and look much, much better.

Interestingly, Supercheap, Auto barn and the rest have Narva and some Chinese brands. Thinking they'd be the same, I bought a combination of both to get the colours I wanted for a previous harness. The Chinese stuff varies wildly in OD, even for the same 3mm wire, even the copper strands vary in size. The difference in size between Narva and the Chinese brands is quite different, the Chinese stuff is much, much thicker and varies with colours.

Lights are all LEDs and cable is rated at 10 amps.

These pics are of the complete ignition harness. I'll finish off the lighting harness today with a bit of luck.

And guess what? all the terminals are soldered. Why? because that's the the way 'I' like to do it. 50 + years of experience doing it' this way without any problems, you can't beat that!

If I understand your intentions correctly don't solder wires in cars or bikes as they will fatigue and break.

I second the opinion of not soldering motorcycle wires. Solder causes a rigid part of wire that fatigue cracks. There is a good reason car and aircraft manufactures don't solder connections.

There are those that do it right and crimp. However, there are the solder lovers that you will never change.

Originally Posted by SurfinNev

There are those that do it right and crimp. However, there are the solder lovers that you will never change.

And what would automotive and aircraft engineers know about designing connections to last ?
Aircraft ? Not as if it would fall out of the sky if an electrical connection failed…
Wait……………..

'My way or no way', seems to be the common thread here. Sorry, but I'll do what works for me. Too bad, so sad!

Now this will no doubt cause a few tantrums
solder,
solder,
solder,
solder,
solder,
solder,
solder,
solder,
solder,
solder.