Suggestions for cable wire source

Community Projects
1

I’m wiring up an interface to my SV-650. I have the Sparkfun OBD-II board, a DB-9 connector, and I even managed to find the unobtanium proprietary connector.

However, I’m having a hard time finding the raw multi-conductor cable and not getting ripped off.

I’m looking for 4-conductor 18ga or so, flexible stranded stuff, and I need about 30ft, plus 80ft for another project. I’d like it to be color-coded too, I’m struggling enough as it is. Normally, I’d grab a serial cable and chop an end off, but they only go to 6ft or so. Phone stuff is hair-thin. Ethernet stuff is twisted-pair. 4-wire speaker cable is that “oxygen-free” crap that’s $10/ft. Thermostat wire is solid and doesn’t flex.

I had a look at Amazon, and their search engine had trouble just finding wire, much less the stuff I wanted. No, Amazon, I don’t want guitar brackets or baby monitors, I want wire.

Where do you people buy your cable stuff?

2

18AWG wire is pretty thick for serial cable.

Anyway, any of the normal electronics distributors would have it. However, for one offs, it’s hard to beat surplus prices. I get a lot of cable from All Electronics. For a more reliable supply, I find that [McMaster-Carr has better pricing than most distributors.](McMaster-Carr)

3

Check also with Mouser and DigiKey.

4

Alphawire (available on digikey) has a few options. It just boils down to type of jacket shielding and stand size.

Wiring and connectors are one of those weird things that are incredibly common but difficult to find/look for.

5

I’ve never seen any sort of AWG spec for cable, so I started with 18ga as a good guess. Anyway, I made a “cable” out of individual wires & zip-ties, and it was enough to show me that the OBD-II board doesn’t work with the KW2000 protocol the Suzuki uses, so that would be the end of that.

Thanks anyway for all the suggestions.

6

see if you can get an old printer extension cable. certainly now 18 awg, but lots of colours…