What kind of wire do you need to make a light bulb work a metal wire or a steel wire?

Answer 1

Steel wire is a metal wire. Copper wire is a metal wire. Aluminum wire is a metal wire.

Most electrical wiring is done using insulated Copper wire these days.

The question does not say what type and size of light bulb is to be hooked-up.

• If it is a light bulb designed to run on mains voltages, such as 120 volts or higher, then, for safety reasons, good quality insulated copper wire intended for that purpose should be used, and nothing else.
• If it is a low voltage bulb, such as 1.5 volt bulb for a flashlight, or a 12 volt bulb of the kind used in a car, then any type of insulated metal wire should be fine.

  Note: Plain uninsulated metal wire would never be a good choice even for low voltages because the bare wires could easily short-out the circuit!

IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB

SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY

REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.

If you do this work yourself,

always turn off the power at the breaker box/fuse panel

BEFORE

you attempt to do any work AND

always use a meter or voltage indicator

to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.

Answer 2

It may sound silly, but it depends on the light bulb (called a lamp). There are lamps in lighting fixtures that we plug into the wall - 120 volts AC. There are automotive lamps - 12 volts DC. And there are different lamps used in flashlights, depending on which cell powers the flashlight, and how many. There are 1.5 volt lamps, 3 volt lamps and more. Further, if you have a flashlight that operates on 2 "AA" batteries (called cells), that lamp will be a bit different than one that operates on 2 "D" cells. It may seem a bit confusing, but that's the long and short of it. If you are setting up an experiment, you have some flexibility in picking a lamp. You will, however, have to have enough batteries of the right kind to operate it. Your local hardware store has lamps for flashlights as well as batteries.