Eboard wire type- how much does it matter?

Something like this might work.

Is anyone else familiar with guaging requirments for the kinds of loads we would be putting on braided copper flat wire?

I’ve often thought of doing something like this.

The net copper cross section is important but it’s not stated in the ebay item description. But let’s say this braid is 1mm thick and 15mm wide, and contains 50% copper (estimate, the rest ia air between the individual strands), you have 15 x 1 x 50% = 7.5 square mm copper, which is a bit less than AWG 8 but more than AWG 10.

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I know under ceramic tiles we used to use flat copper wire when connecting floor heating systems, kind of like the old window security tape but heavier gauge. Wonder if that could also heat the deck for those chilly morning commutes??? LOL

Interesting discussion, but I have a point to add here. I believe current (amps) only flows on the surface of a copper wire, hence high strand wire (more surface area) could deliver better current compared to same thickness of a single copper wire.

You are referring to the skin effect, that happens at high frequency, not high current. Stranded and braided wires offer a mechanical advantage where the wire can be move around more than a single conductor with the same gauge

Ohh well yes you’re right. My mistake :slight_smile:

I’d like to point out that space cells apparently have 16awg mains. 16 GAUGE MAINS.

which makes my 10 gauge mains policy pretty pointless as far as I can tell. I may as well just run 16 awg all the way up to the VESC.

when i build my own packs they will have 10 gauge super worm mains. They’ll also be 12S, but that’s another topic for later.

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I’ve totally agree with 10 gauge by far is the most suitable wire I’ve ever used. It’s not as rigid as 8 awg but does feel more sturdy than 8 awg. Lipo packs with 20 - 30c discharge uses this 10 awg - 12 awg wire, so it’s also good reason to stick with it. 8 awg wire also doesn’t fit into XT60, so it requires more expensive XT90 plugs. And again all of these wire sizes in the circuit does get affected by the weakest / thinnest cable, so thats the reason I also stick with all 10 awg.

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That would only exacerbate the weak link. Using 16 awg over a short distance will not have too much resistance but it would be bad news if you added more length at 16 awg.

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How about 18650 packs? I see many different ways they’re connected and they all look thin. More so how about capacitance…will a typical 18650 pack need more capacitors?

Actually I think this was good topic…

It seems that for lower power setups, it is possible to use 14awg wire… but since motors come with 12awg wire, that is also the size I sticked to…

14awg seems to be rated at something like 50-60Amps…

One thing why I started searching wire gauges / sizes… with higher amps there seems to be quite high voltage drop… this is especially a case for charger cables…

Sorry for bringing up this old topic… just wanted to throw in what I use and what has been more important for me - the voltage drop because of the small wire diameter / its current capability


This site seems to give off some good estimate / info on what wire to choose… based on distance / amps needed.

The spacecell (Raptor battery) has 12 AWG leads and this is more than enough for the complete build. I am using the Raptor dual setup on a different board and I literally can not feel any temperature increase in the 12AWG HobbyKing wires.