Size of Wire for Battery Hookups

[Mike Swanson]

Hello,

Things going well with my ferris wheel, was going to tackle the electronics part and was wondering if I needed to use a certain size of wire for the battery connections. I have some 20 or 22 gauge wire from radio shack (comes in three different color spools), wanted to use it to connect the circuit board to terminals and also from terminals to the batteries. Will it work? I'm using two small 12 V 5 AH batteries initially.

Thanks!

Mike

[Tom C]

Hello,

Things going well with my ferris wheel, was going to tackle the electronics part and was wondering if I needed to use a certain size of wire for the battery connections. I have some 20 or 22 gauge wire from radio shack (comes in three different color spools), wanted to use it to connect the circuit board to terminals and also from terminals to the batteries. Will it work? I'm using two small 12 V 5 AH batteries initially.

Thanks!

Mike

12 gauge wire minimum for those small batteries.

Tom C

[Col.Zimka]

Hello,

Looking at this thread and I wondered if there were more specific guidelines to follow when tuning wire gauge to battery size. I would have thought that a smaller battery (as discussed above) would use thinner wire gauge. What are the parameters to follow? I ask this because I have a 1000-foot spool of 24 gauge wire and it's just begging to be put to use!

Cheers,

Karl

[Jet-A]

I was having issues reaching a high enough voltage on my charging battery. Switching from 20 to 10 guage wire made a huge difference in charging voltages.

Alex

[John_Koorn]

Use the thickest wire you can get. You could even parallel some thinner wire together.

Copper pipe works really well too


John K.

[Mike Swanson]

Glad I asked! Thanks!