I dont know why they have to lie about it. At $5/8ft board you’d think I paid for the full 1.5. Edit: I mixed up nominal with actual.

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The European wire gauge system makes no sense. There I said it. I don’t need to know the O.D. of the wire, I need to know the amp rating. The O.D. only becomes an issue for bending radius and there is a chart for that as well. Nothing is stopping some a**hole from making a wire almost completely out of plastic that has the O.D. of a typical 14AWG but can’t carry any serious amount of current under the European system. Under the AWG you always know what the current capacity is.

    And while we are at it, you might as well standardize your wire sizes based on copper. You are never going to use anything except copper. So your units should reflect the material. I am building a chemical skid, that has nothing to do with the distance between the equator to the north pole.

    Also when is the last time you were running wires that you needed a mm of precision? Meanwhile a fraction of an amp really does matter. So should not the thing that does matter be reflected in the product?

    • oyo@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      How does 16, 14, or 12 AWG tell you anything about ampacity?

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You use the chart. How does mm of a wire, including insulation, tell you ampacity? As I said it is easy to imagine a thick wire that can carry almost no current. You can’t pull that crap with AWG system. It tells you the single most important fact, how much current a wire can carry. There is no incentive for wire manufacturers to cheat the system since a thicker insulation wire just means more cost for them.

        Which ties in nicely with the other charts. Tell me how much power you need a motor to deliver and what I have to deal with and I can tell you exactly what wires to use, it’s bending radius how thick it is etc. None of which I can do in the CE system.

    • Magnetar@feddit.de
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      6 months ago

      I honestly can’t tell if you’re doing a bit or are actually serious.