Cables & Wires

Cables and wires are blocks capable of carrying electricity between points, provided it has a reason to (E.g., from a generator to a machine), and are also used in some recipes. Both have sizes ranging from 1-16 in powers of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8, 16) and lose a static (no pun intended) amount of energy from each packet for each block traveled. For both wires and cables, maximum voltage remains the same regardless of size, but amperage increases directly proportional to the size.

Example of Amperage
1x Iron Cable has a base amperage of 2, 2x Iron cable has an amperage of (2x size * 2 base amperage) = 4 amperage, 4x Iron Cable has an amperage of (4x size * 2 base amperage) = 8 amperage.

Wires
Wires are uninsulated, and as a result will damage any nearby entities if electricity if flowing through them. In addition, for wire sizes 4-16, the loss is increased by 50%. Although cheaper in terms of rubber or wool/string (wires can be converted to cables by insulating them by either means), the 50% increase in the amount of electricity lost per block is only compounded when increasing the number of packets passing through each cable. Because of this, it's best to convert exposed wires of size 4 or greater to cables as soon as possible.

Obtaining
Wires can initially only be created by using a Wire Cutter on a metal plate, but can later be produced with machines like the Extruder or the more efficient Wiremill.

Cables
Cables are wires that have been insulated with either rubber or wool and string. Apart from the cost of insulation, they are superior to wires in every way. Cables will, regardless of size, experience only half the base loss of their respective wire and do not harm entities.

Obtaining
ULV and LV voltage cables, those being: Red Alloy, Cobalt, Lead, Soldering Metal, Tin and Zinc can all be crafted by hand or in a Packer, while all cables may be created using an Assembling Machine.

Crafting
The cables listed above can be crafted with: 1 of their respective wire, 1 black carpet and 1 string as shown and is a shapeless recipe.

Packer
The cables listed above can be created in a Packer with: 1 wire and 1 black carpet.

Assembling Machine
All cables can be created in an Assembling Machine. For sizes greater than 1x, they can be created with either x 1x wire or the desired cable size and (x*144) mbs of rubber, where x is the size of the cable.

E.g., an 8x iron cable could be created in an Assembling machine with: 8 1x iron wires or 1 8x iron wires and 1,152 mbs of rubber.

Details
Below is a table of all of the materials wires/cables can be constructed from, alongside their max voltages and base amperages and losses. All numbers given are for 1x wires of the respective materials.