You only need to run 10 gauge wire for the segments marked with blue ellipses in the marked up schematic below. These are the only wires that will carry the ~23 A for the element. All other wiring can be 14 gauge, as it will carry less than 10 A current.
Brew on
Not to sound like a broken record here, but... If people insist on using home depot romex then you need the thick wires. It is not the size of the wire but it's insulation type that matters. FTR - 22 gauge TGGT Cable is rated for 300V, 12 amps. 10 gauge TGGT is rated for 600V at 75 amps. Romex is cheap and cumbersome. You can get TGGT from Grainger makes for a tight clean controller without the unnecessary big ass wires. Yes the wire is more expensive only because it comes in larger rolls - use what you need and sell the rest.
Just a pet peeve.
All three pids, timer, amp meter and all my LEDs are all powered off a single pair of 16 or 18g (cant remember) wires protected by a single 1/2a fuse..... That's right all this stuff draws less that 1/2a combined! I can't help but laugh when I see all these pictures with 12 and 14 gauge wiring running to these things.... pids actually have small DC power supplies in them and run off 24v internally from what I've read... even 18g is technically overkill for the amps draw...
I believe this is what I will be doing for mine. Tho I wasn't planning on running those things off the same wires, but now I'm thinking about it!!
You can route the finer gauge wire for the switch/LED either to the terminal block, or the power input terminal on the contactor. Or, you can just run a 10 G from the terminal block to the switch/LED, and another 10 G from the switch/LED to the contactor. But the first option is probable easier.So my initial question arose when trying to complete the 10 gauge leg feeding the contractor and led 1. Now that I see the led 1 portion can be of smaller gauge, how do you execute this? I'm assuming running 14 gauge back to the terminal bar. Sorry for the noob questions, obviously don't want to use the wrong wire
All three pids, timer, amp meter and all my LEDs are all powered off a single pair of 16 or 18g (cant remember) wires protected by a single 1/2a fuse..... That's right all this stuff draws less that 1/2a combined! I can't help but laugh when I see all these pictures with 12 and 14 gauge wiring running to these things.... pids actually have small DC power supplies in them and run off 24v internally from what I've read... even 18g is technically overkill for the amps draw...
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