Need Help Choosing Wire Thickness


  #1  
Old 01-29-13, 10:02 PM
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Need Help Choosing Wire Thickness

I live in Malaysia. We are using 220-240v @ 50hz.

I want to use a vacuum cleaner to clean my car. The rated wattage is 1500W which I believe is 6.5A (1500w divided by 230v).

I need to use an extension wire of 15 meters and I intend to make my own because the shop sells wires up to 10 meters only and they normally say it is not suitable for appliances above 1000W.

The wire measurement in Malaysia is quoted as “23/016-3C” – which I googled means the wire is made up of 23 small 0.16mm wires x 3 core.

There are also thicker wires (actually more wires) such as “40/016-3C” and “72/016-3C”.

Most ppl here just tell me use the thickest wire I can find, i.e. 72/016-3C.

But actually what type of wire should I use?
Is there a calculation / table I can refer to?
 
  #2  
Old 01-30-13, 05:22 AM
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Someone might be able to help, but this is primarily a US based site. Here the wire sizes are based on the total area of the conductors and are expressed in AWG, American wire gauge.
 
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Old 01-30-13, 07:25 AM
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Maybe this is an over simplification, but this appears to be a simple math problem. Here in the US a 14 gauge wire can handle 15 amps. The diameter of a 14 gauge wire is .0641 in or 1.628 mm. If you have 23 .16 mm wires then their mass is going to exceed the 14 gauge wire which should be sufficient to handle a 6 amp load.

Looking at the volume area of the wire, 23 .16 mm wires has about 4 times the volume of a 14 gauge wire if I calculated correctly.
 
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Old 01-30-13, 08:48 AM
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Thank you ednu99 for what is probably the best answer omcx123 will get here given no one here is probably familiar with Singapore code. Not sure though you are translating the wire size correctly so I am including the info below.



Permitted amps for AWG sizes above: Houston Wire & Cable Company - NEC Table 310.16
 

Last edited by ray2047; 01-30-13 at 09:09 AM.
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Old 01-30-13, 10:45 AM
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I agree Ray, I think my original math post is suspect. If you search, there are some tables that compare metric to awg wire sizes.
 
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Old 01-30-13, 11:22 AM
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You mean like in my post?
 
 

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