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18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 9:09 pm
by apostoly
I need to go out and purchase some more of the hot end cabling.
is there any specific info i need to know before purchasing any? Are the ones used 7.5amp per core?
Also the place i have in mind doesn't have any shielded wire, but to my understanding once you remove the shielding its essentially the same wire??
This is what the person recommended, but not sure if it will do??
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=WB1762
Thanks Paul
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 10:51 am
by geneb
As long as it's not solid core (needs to be stranded), you should be fine.
g.
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 2:39 pm
by Christian79
Also try to use stranded wire that is very fine and flexible. I had the stock wire break three separate times. Admittedly my routing played a large part in the failure, but I would still use fine stranded over the stock any day.
YMMV
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 2:57 pm
by Eaglezsoar
Christian79 wrote:Also try to use stranded wire that is very fine and flexible. I had the stock wire break three separate times. Admittedly my routing played a large part in the failure, but I would still use fine stranded over the stock any day.
YMMV
The finest strands and the most flexable would be silicone jacketed wire and although it is expensive it is worth it. It is sometimes called the wet noodle wire because of its flexibility.
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 5:41 pm
by apostoly
I ended up going for the wire linked in my original post.
The wire itself is definitely more flexible but just need to make sure no little strands got jammed and are sticking out onto any of the other wires (had one tiny strand which i had to cut off after installation)
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 6:45 pm
by AndThenSome09
Why shouldn't you use solid core wire? Just wondering cause I'm using it on my RosBot build as we speak.

Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Wed May 07, 2014 8:58 am
by geneb
Because when you move solid-core wire around a lot it will work harden the copper and then it will begin to crack and eventually break. Take a bit of solid core wire and bend it back and forth for a while. You'll see the bend area get stiffer until the point where it begins to crack and come apart.
g.
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Wed May 07, 2014 9:24 pm
by brent
geneb wrote:Because when you move solid-core wire around a lot it will work harden the copper and then it will begin to crack and eventually break. Take a bit of solid core wire and bend it back and forth for a while. You'll see the bend area get stiffer until the point where it begins to crack and come apart.
g.
I use stranded on my heatbeds. What wire gauge do you personally recommend, gene?
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 9:26 am
by geneb
I'd personally use 16.
g.
Re: 18 Gauge 4 conductor wire question
Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 1:31 pm
by lordbinky
The pwm of the heating isn't doing solid core any favors either. With the Onyx being a low resistance (and typical printer heating elements), higher gauge wiring does help (within reason....). If you wanted to be really meticulous you would run the POS & NEG wires different paths to and from the heat bed to avoid any proximity effects.