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Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: shmokes on September 01, 2008, 10:30:03 pm

Title: Wire gauge
Post by: shmokes on September 01, 2008, 10:30:03 pm

I had to chop the wire from my 270 wheel because it's not long enough to route up into my control panel from its location on the floor.  Also, the end of it is a DB25 connector, which is too big to go through the opening on my control panel.  Anyway, I want to extend the length with a CAT 5e cable, putting an RJ45 connector on one end, and a jack on the other so that I can take them apart when I need to.  I have a question about the wire gauge, though.  There are six wires inside the cable.  Four of them are 26 gauge, but the two power wires are 22 gauge, or maybe 20 gauge. 

Do you think I'll have any trouble splicing those larger power wires with the 24 gauge wires inside the CAT 5e cable?  I mean, do you think the smaller gauge cable will cause any problems with delivering power up to the steering wheel?

Let me know if my description is confusing and I'll try to make sense of it.

Title: Re: Wire gauge
Post by: Stobe on September 02, 2008, 07:59:12 am

If there are only six cables needed, did you consider using 2 wires each (from the cat5) for your +DC and Ground?  This would give your power a bigger path to follow.

-Stobe

Title: Re: Wire gauge
Post by: shmokes on September 02, 2008, 08:18:49 am

Actually, that's exactly what I was going to do when I was planning to just splice with Ethernet cable (but end up with a single continues cable from pedal to steering wheel.  But once I decided to punch the pedal side of the wire down to a jack and the steering wheel side to an RJ45 connector that became a little bit more complicated.  I suppose it's still possible, but it'll be a trickier job.

Title: Re: Wire gauge
Post by: scotthh on September 02, 2008, 10:21:59 am

I have buttons joysticks, a spinner and a trackball wired with cat-5 cable and haven't had a problem. The trackball uses +5V, is that the same as the 270 wheel?

Title: Re: Wire gauge
Post by: Stobe on September 02, 2008, 04:52:20 pm

If your cat5 is going through a jack and plug, just wire those two straight through (568-B?) and just merge the two cables at the two far ends.  The same amount of voltage and current will be delivered to the endpoint, but the load will be shared through every component (instead of bottle-necking at the connector).