Basic question: exposed copper wires

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello all,

I am working on an interactive plant for one of my projects (something like this) , and for aesthetics reasons, I chose to use exposed copper wires to connect NeoPixel LEDs (and some muscle wires).

This is the one that I chose (mine are 20 gauge though)

473×600 92.7 KB

All the wires will be contained inside a 3D printed plastic container, so no one will be able to touch the wires.

The wires won't be touching the Arduino and I will have proper wires (these) connecting to the UNO.

My questions are:
Are these wires ok for the project? Are these other things I should be worried about when working with exposed wires?

Is it even possible to work with exposed wires?

Thank you for the help!

2

So long as the wires can't touch, and nobody can touch them , and water ingress isn't possible...OK

Bare copper wire will corrode slowly to a dull brown in air ... if that's ok

And you have to deal with it's resistance/length ( true for any wire ) in this case 0.053 ohms per foot.

regards

allan

3

nobody can touch them

Did you ever have an electric train set as a kid? Or a scalextric racing car kit?
They had exposed conductors carrying 12V, over twice the voltage of an Arduino.

Was that dangerous?

4

Fair enough..

regards

Allan

5

Grumpy_Mike:
Did you ever have an electric train set as a kid? Or a scalextric racing car kit?
They had exposed conductors carrying 12V, over twice the voltage of an Arduino.

Was that dangerous?

I had a train set with a hornby transformer and a short.
The transformer caught fire.

I was misusing it as a hot wire cutter though. The thermal trip had a bit of sticky tape over it.
I forgot i left it on.

6

I used mine to "discover" electrolysis at the age of 10. :slight_smile:

Edit - that is not the removing hair type but the electro plating type.

7

Long wires and especially looped wire can pick up changing magnetic fields.
It's unlikely to be a problem for you.

8

Grumpy_Mike:
Did you ever have an electric train set as a kid? Or a scalextric racing car kit?
They had exposed conductors carrying 12V, over twice the voltage of an Arduino.

Was that dangerous?

YES!! When you put steel wool across the tracks and turn it up, you can melt little green army men. That put's out noxious odors and can burn you.

As for the OP, you can always spray the wires with clear enamel to keep them bright and shiney, as long as you don't bend the wires a lot and crack the paint.

9

tinman13kup:
As for the OP, you can always spray the wires with clear enamel to keep them bright and shiney, as long as you don't bend the wires a lot and crack the paint.

Better (and easier) than this is to use enamelled copper 'winding' wire, intended for transformers and coils. Then the wires will keep their nice, shiny copper colour without tarnishing but have decent insulation, (and they can be bent without problems).