80 Wire & Cable Gauges and Information

80 Wire & Cable Gauges and Information

There is a lot of confusion about the different wire gauges

and how they relate to each other.

We will try to simplify the wire sizes and talk about the

construction of wire and cables.

In the U.S., wire sizes are referred to by their

American Wire Gauge.

Do not use the outside diameter of insulated wire or cable

to determine the wire gauge size - different wires have different

insulation thicknesses.

The following link will take you to a table on this page showing

approximate wire gauges and their diameter.

Wire Gauge Table

On this page we will be concerned with "stranded" wire which

has many individual conductors and not "solid" wire which has a

single conductor.

Insulated wire and cable are made up of two components, the

copper which carries the current and the insulating jacket which

protects against short circuits.

Conductors:

The individual small wires are called strands.

The more the strands in a given wire gauge, the smaller they will

be and the more flexible the wire or cable is.

As an example, large gauge building wires have less strands (which

makes them a larger diameter per strand) than does welding

cable (which has bundles of very fine strands).

Building wire is very stiff and is unsuitable for low voltage direct current,

mobile and battery based applications.

On the other hand, welding cable is very supple and is much easier to

install. It also costs more than the same gauge of building wire.

Fine strand cable has the strands in a single or multiple bundles.

When you strip fine stranded wire, such as welding cable, the strands

can puff up and expand.

They are compressed by the insulating jacket.

The order of flexibility from the least flexible to the most would be:

building wire followed by battery wire and then welding cable.

Heavy building wire usually does not require very sharp bends, is

used for 120 volts a.c. or higher and vibration is not a concern.

Battery cable may require very sharp bends under the hood, carries

high amperage low voltage d.c. and can be subject to constant vibration

which would damage connections if a stiffer cable were used.

Welding cable carries high amperage at low voltage a.c. or d.c., and

is very supple so the welder can move it around without being fatigued.

Portable power cable is specially designed for rough handling and

high flexibility.

Insulation / jackets:

The type of insulation a cable has usually determines what kind of

environment it can be used in.

One example is type UF (underground feeder), in many cases it

can be buried in the ground (direct burial) because of the jacket

thickness material it is made of. Some UF cables have ultraviolet

resistant insulation.

Another kind is Tray Cable. The tray cables I have used have a thick

jacket with a UV block for outside use as well as a nylon cord against

the insulated conductors for mechanical strength. This allows them to be

used in aerial installations.

The 2 ga. Portable Power Cable we have in a couple of our systems has

a thin inner jacket and a very thick outer jacket. The thickness of both

jackets total about 3/8".

The insulation material also plays a key role in the applications the cable

can be used in.

Different insulation materials have different dielectric strengths (the

maximum voltage that the insulation can handle).

Temperature can affect the dielectric rating of the jacket. Many wires and

cables have two temperature ratings (usually in degrees C), one in a dry

environment and one in a wet environment (which is lower).

We have some 10 ga. single conductor wire here which is marked

"USE - 2". It is underground service entrance rated wire.

The "- 2" gives it a higher temperature rating in a wet environment.

AWG	Approximate Diameter in inches
0000 (4/0)	0.4600
000 (3/0)	0.4096
00 (2/0)	0.3648
0 (1/0)	0.3249
1	0.2893
2	0.2486
4	0.2043
6	0.1620
8	0.1285
10	0.1019
12	0.0808

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