Wire Question

[davidsz]

Will 20 gauge solid core door-bell wire work for wiring up my control panel to an IPAC?  I have a spool of 200' that has 2 wires (white and red) laying around.

What is the preferred wire for controls?

Thanks,

David

[Wienerdog]

That will work.

The preferred wire is stranded, somewhere between 18 and 22 gauge.  Some people have used 14 gauge stranded electrical wire and some have used the wire from ribbon cables (which is a very thin gauge), and everywhere in between!

I have 18 gauge stranded that I am using.

There really isn't a functional disadvantage of using solid wire, it is just harder to work with.

[Apollo]

Don't use solid core even if you have it just lying around. Use stranded it is much more forgiving.

[seaner]

I used solid-core cat-5 and some cat-3 to cable my panel up.. nice and handy because it has 8 conductors per bundle.. keeps things neat inside.. haven't had any problems with wires cracking or coming disconnected.  Soldered quick disconnects to the control ends, and mounted screw-down terminals at the other end.
I'm actually about to modularize my entire panel using 50-pin ribbon cable and a pair of 50-pin connectors for quick change to other panels.. ie. flight, steering wheel, etc.

[RandyT]

Solid core wire is ok to use, but I'd get something a little heavier if I was going to use it.  It takes more effort to break heavier wire.

You definitely should avoid it for an application where the wire may move (swappable controls, etc.).  But if you plan on wiring it once and leaving it there, there's really no disadvantage.

RandyT

[Ken Layton]

For control panels I always use stranded wire because of the vibration factor of the joystick and pushbuttons.

For those that need wire, Hosfelt Electronics (www.hosfelt.com) has 10 different colors of single conductor stranded wire in 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 gauge in either 25 foot or 100 lengths. Prices are reasonable and the normal colors stocked are Grey, Black, Brown, Orange, White, Purple, Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue. They also sell lots of different types/lengths of power cords.

[MUKid]

22 AWG solid core wire is too thick to fit two pieces into a red quick-disconnect connector.  You have to use stranded to get them both to fit, or use a bigger gauge quick-disconnect.  Or at least, that's what I figured out (the hard way).

EDIT:  I mean, you'd want to do that if you were daisy-chaining the connectors for your ground connections -- otherwise I guess it wouldn't matter.

[JustMichael]

Solid core is fine as long as you aren't plugging and unplugging a wiring harness of it each day.  I used some old cat5 cable and it works just fine.  I had to fold it over on itself a couple of times to make a good fit before crimping quick disconnects on though.

[STL_Steve]

Use stranded not solid core, while solid core works fine, I found it puts too much stress on the mircoswitches if you dont anchor it to the underside of the CP and it is harder to work with.