Wires use everywhere even in Wireless systems!!!
Cable or Wire?
What is the difference between a wire and cable? This is one of the most basic questions that still need to be answered. Wire is a single conductor and cable is a group of two or more insulated conductors. If there was not any insulation on the two conductors then it would not be a cable, it would still be a single conductor which would classify as a wire.
Ingredients!
The picture below shows structure of a sample wire, although all cables or wires may don’t have all part of mentioned parts.
Insulation: two kind of insulation are common in industries
- PVC: Max. degree is 70 Celsius
- XLPE: Max. degree is 90 Celsius
If cable uses in outdoor circumstance the cable has Amour,
If cable uses in oily circumstance the cable has jacket
If cable uses for transferring DC or HV the cable has copper shield
The picture above shows a complete cable and most of cables don’t have all parts shown in the picture.More Info
- But all wires have conductor
The conductor can be a single solid wire or made up of a number of thin strands. Solid or single-stranded wire is not very flexible and is used where rigid connections are acceptable or preferred – usually in high current applications in power switching contractors.
Stranded wire is flexible and most interconnections between components are made with it.
Wire specifications
There are several ways to describe the wire type. The most used method is to specify the number of strands in the conductor, the diameter of the strands, the cross sectional area of the conductor then the insulation type.
Example: 35/0.25 PVC 0.28 mm2 --> the conductor comprises 35 strands. Each strand is 0.25mm and insulated with PVC the conductor has a cross-sectional area nominally of 0.28mm2.
Solid wire can also be specified using the Standard Wire Gauge or SWG system.
British Standard Wire Gauge is a set of wire sizes is generally abbreviated to SWG. It is also known as: Imperial Wire Gauge or British Standard Gauge.
D(AWG)=.005·92((36-AWG)/39) inch.
Note that in AWG the diameter goes up as the gauge goes down, but for metric gauges it is the opposite. Probably because of this confusion, most of the time metric sized wire is specified in millimeters rather than metric gauges.
The SWG number is equivalent to a specific diameter of conductor.
TABLE:
SWG | in | mm |
7/0 | 0.5 | 12.700 |
6/0 | 0.464 | 11.786 |
5/0 | 0.432 | 10.973 |
4/0 | 0.4 | 10.160 |
3/0 | 0.372 | 9.449 |
2/0 | 0.348 | 8.839 |
0 | 0.324 | 8.230 |
1 | 0.3 | 7.620 |
2 | 0.276 | 7.010 |
3 | 0.252 | 6.401 |
6 | 0.192 | 4.877 |
7 | 0.176 | 4.470 |
8 | 0.16 | 4.064 |
9 | 0.144 | 3.658 |
10 | 0.128 | 3.251 |
11 | 0.116 | 2.946 |
12 | 0.104 | 2.642 |
13 | 0.092 | 2.337 |
14 | 0.08 | 2.032 |
15 | 0.072 | 1.829 |
16 | 0.064 | 1.626 |
17 | 0.056 | 1.422 |
18 | 0.048 | 1.219 |
19 | 0.04 | 1.016 |
20 | 0.036 | 0.914 |
21 | 0.032 | 0.813 |
22 | 0.028 | 0.711 |
23 | 0.024 | 0.610 |
24 | 0.022 | 0.559 |
25 | 0.02 | 0.5080 |
26 | 0.018 | 0.4572 |
27 | 0.0164 | 0.4166 |
28 | 0.0148 | 0.3759 |
29 | 0.0136 | 0.3454 |
30 | 0.0124 | 0.3150 |
31 | 0.0116 | 0.2946 |
32 | 0.0108 | 0.2743 |
33 | 0.01 | 0.2540 |
34 | 0.0092 | 0.2337 |
35 | 0.0084 | 0.2134 |
36 | 0.0076 | 0.1930 |
37 | 0.0068 | 0.1727 |
38 | 0.006 | 0.1524 |
39 | 0.0052 | 0.1321 |
40 | 0.0048 | 0.1219 |
41 | 0.0044 | 0.1118 |
42 | 0.004 | 0.1016 |
43 | 0.0036 | 0.0914 |
44 | 0.0032 | 0.0813 |
45 | 0.0028 | 0.0711 |
46 | 0.0024 | 0.0610 |
47 | 0.002 | 0.0508 |
48 | 0.0016 | 0.0406 |
49 | 0.0012 | 0.0305 |
50 | 0.001 | 0.0254 |
TO BE CONTINUED
