Does ANYONE use Sheilded Wire?

[cessna928]

I've started buying up supplies for a couple projects I've been planning, and one of the items I bought locally was three 25' rolls of stranded 22awg hookup wire to rewire my basses with. While looking for a good deal online, which eventually ended with me just buying some radio shack wire for next to nothing, I noticed that they make wire that actually has its own shielding that you have to independently ground. My question is this: What is the point of having independently shielded, internal wiring if the you shield the pickgaurd and cavities of your instruments? Is it overkill, which it looks like, or is it specially made for back routed instruments? Please enlighten me, because the prices they list that stuff at have me puzzled as to whom would buy it.

Maybe it's for active setups? I seriously have no idea.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electron...cuit_Wire.html

[nekodensha]

Thread bump for an excellent question. I'd like to know the answer to this one as well.

[brentonkim]

bump, and subscribed!

[Rune Bivrin]

Not all instruments are fully shielded. Particularly hollow instruments...

Also, there are other uses for wire beyond wiring basses, believe it or not!

[Jim C]

I've tried shielded wire in a Jazz and didn't find that it made any more improvement over standard copper tape shielding in the cavities (which I think can work very well on some instruments)

[cessna928]

I asked a buddy of mine if he ever used it for his guitar projects, and apparently les pauls commonly use sheilded wire for their setups. I could see how it could be pretty much necessary for semihollows and such, but sheilding them would be pretty much a crap shoot to begin with.

I would love to do an experiment comparing the effects of different shielding methods. There could be a control, completely unsheilded, instrument, one shielded with copper tape alone, one with sheilded wire alone, one with both, one with conductive paint, and one with the old silver tape method. You could just plug them each in individually and raise them up next to a fluorescent ceiling light, those are pretty good EMI courses from what I can tell.

Oh, the things I would do with surplus time, money, and instruments.

[Darkstrike]

You can also use the shielded braid as a seperate line run, using the one shielded cable as two seperate cables, if they're both coming and going from the same area of the circut.

Makes things neater.

[line6man]

I really don't understand the question at all, because this should have been common sense.

First off, not all instruments are shielded.
You usually see shielded wire on cheap, unshielded basses, but I've rarely seen it on mid to high end basses.

Second, the idea behind shielding is to do it as thoroughly as possible. It never hurts to shield the cavity and then shield the wires to catch anything the cavity shielding might have missed.

Also note that the wire connecting the pickups to the control cavity travels through an unshielded area of the bass, so shielded wire can be useful for that.

FWIW, shielded wire is no substitute for a proper cavity shielding. You need to also be sure the pots and such get shielded.

I've never looked into it, but I would imagine shielded wire to be somewhat capacitive, due to the nature of it's construction.
I would rather just use regular wire, personally.

[markseb1]

I use both shielded wire and copper shielding of the control and pick-up cavities. My bass doesn't have a huge pickguard, or any for that matter, and has long passages for the wiring to get from the pick-up to the control cavity and from the control cavity to the output jack. The only option is to do both copper shielding of the cavities and shielded wire. Yes, I do solder the wires shield wrap to the copper in the cavities to complete the circuit. I can't really tell a big difference since I have a huge single coil pick-up installed, but I didn't want to miss any obvious improvements while I was installing US made pots and the "new" pick-up.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Never had a problem with the channel leading to the pickups myself. If it's a bit on the narrow side I enlarge it a bit then use a roll of coper tape to sheild it (which, granted can be a bit fiddly at times).

[FunkMetalBass]

My friend's ESP (that I recently rewired) used shielded wire. It kind of threw me off initially.

[hdracer]

Originally Posted by line6man

I really don't understand the question at all, because this should have been common sense.

First off, not all instruments are shielded.
You usually see shielded wire on cheap, unshielded basses, but I've rarely seen it on mid to high end basses.

Second, the idea behind shielding is to do it as thoroughly as possible. It never hurts to shield the cavity and then shield the wires to catch anything the cavity shielding might have missed.

Also note that the wire connecting the pickups to the control cavity travels through an unshielded area of the bass, so shielded wire can be useful for that.

FWIW, shielded wire is no substitute for a proper cavity shielding. You need to also be sure the pots and such get shielded.

I've never looked into it, but I would imagine shielded wire to be somewhat capacitive, due to the nature of it's construction.
I would rather just use regular wire, personally.

Gibson and Rickenbacker use shielded wires. Are you saying they are "cheap" ? A good quality bass or guitar should have shielded cavity's AND shielded wires.

[line6man]

Originally Posted by hdracer

Gibson and Rickenbacker use shielded wires. Are you saying they are "cheap" ? A good quality bass or guitar should have shielded cavity's AND shielded wires.

I guess I never noticed it before.
Those instruments are both passive though, btw. (Right?)

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by hdracer

Gibson and Rickenbacker use shielded wires. Are you saying they are "cheap" ? A good quality bass or guitar should have shielded cavity's AND shielded wires.

Cheap and good are two very different things.

IMO, those brands are neither of the above.

[line6man]

Originally Posted by i_got_a_mohawk

Cheap and good are two very different things.

IMO, those brands are neither of the above.

[MglMatador]

Shielded wire is great for running from the pickup cavities to the area(s) where the pots live (that may or may not have shielded cavities). It's MUCH easier than making up copper shielding tubes and trying to string them through those holes between the various cavities.

Also, buy tinned/stranded wire with a Teflon jacket: you can solder, re-solder, and triple solder it without fear of burning, shrinking, or melting the insulation (it's good up to obscene temperatures). It's totally worth the extra $$.

[Rune Bivrin]

It's probably only in wiring instruments that the idea of using unshielded wires for small signals in a high impedance circuit would be considered a good idea. The consensus in audio circles is that shielded wire is needed outside of fully shielded enclosures.

Think about it: Why do you think the instrument cable is shielded?

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Instrument cables tend to be quite a lot longer than the wiring found in a guitar or bass.

MglMatador - I always just use a slip of heatshrink tubing, covers up any small burns in the insulation near a solder point

[miner49er11]

I don't use it anymore. Proper grounding techniques and good cavity shielding, even a couple coats of that nasty conductve paint, seems to do the trick on my passive basses. If you need the insurance, go ahead and use it.

[line6man]

Originally Posted by miner49er11

a couple coats of that nasty conductve paint

Topic for another thread, but copper foil works better than the paint. Conductive paint is more resistive than copper foil.