Does using two wires increase or decrease resistance?

[oneshock1]

Hello. I was wondering if doubling the amount of speaker wire increases or decreases the resistance of the wire itself. In context, I have a 4 conductor wire going through the wall from a receiver to a wall mounted speaker. I was wondering that if I spliced two wires together and used them as one wire, would that decrease the resistance of the wire(s) themselves, thus acting as one wire of a larger gauge, or would using two wires increase the resistance? Thanks for the help.

[Electronics Wizardy]

It would lower it, but would make basically no difference.

[vanished]

it would basically cut the resistance in half, but if the wire is any good it would already be insignificantly small so this is not worth doing.

[kb5zue]

26 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

it would basically cut the resistance in half, but if the wire is any good it would already be insignificantly small so this is not worth doing.

Although I agree with most of what is said here, there are things to consider.  Are the wires of equal length?  Are the wires equal in size, ie: 12 guage or 14 guage?  Are the wires soldered in parallel or are they soldered in serial?

 

For example, lets say the wires are identical in all ways.  Same length and same size.  Also given is the total resistance of just one of the wires = 100 ohms, therefore, the resistance of both wires is the same.

 

If the wires are soldered in serial (end to end), then the total resistance of the wires would be 2 times 100 ohms or 200 ohms over the total length of the wire.

 

If the wires are soldered in parallel, (side by side), then the total resistance of the wires would be 1/2 times 100 ohms for a total of 50 ohms over the total length of the wire.

 

I know my answer is a little long winded but I wanted to make sure that you understood the reason behind the answer.  That way if the question ever comes up again, you know how to figure it out for yourself.

 

FYI, if there are four wires of equal length and size and each wire measures 100 ohms, then in series total resistance would be 400 ohms, but if they are connected in parallel, then total would be 1/4 times 100 ohms or 25 ohms total.

 

[oneshock1]

On 2/22/2018 at 10:47 PM, kb5zue said:

Although I agree with most of what is said here, there are things to consider.  Are the wires of equal length?  Are the wires equal in size, ie: 12 guage or 14 guage?  Are the wires soldered in parallel or are they soldered in serial?

 

For example, lets say the wires are identical in all ways.  Same length and same size.  Also given is the total resistance of just one of the wires = 100 ohms, therefore, the resistance of both wires is the same.

 

If the wires are soldered in serial (end to end), then the total resistance of the wires would be 2 times 100 ohms or 200 ohms over the total length of the wire.

 

If the wires are soldered in parallel, (side by side), then the total resistance of the wires would be 1/2 times 100 ohms for a total of 50 ohms over the total length of the wire.

 

I know my answer is a little long winded but I wanted to make sure that you understood the reason behind the answer.  That way if the question ever comes up again, you know how to figure it out for yourself.

 

FYI, if there are four wires of equal length and size and each wire measures 100 ohms, then in series total resistance would be 400 ohms, but if they are connected in parallel, then total would be 1/4 times 100 ohms or 25 ohms total.

 

Let's assume each conductor is 12 awg. If I had 4 conductors (all the same length) in a wire... If I spliced 2 pairs of wire to create 2 wires instead of 4, would the resistance of running a signal through one of those pairs be less than that of one of the original conductors? I understand the resistance should be 1/2 the original, but I just wanted to make sure I understood properly.

 

Also, if the wire is REALLY BAD, as in 50 feet of 18-20 gauge, would this technique of splicing two conductors together help at all?

[kb5zue]

6 hours ago, oneshock1 said:

Let's assume each conductor is 12 awg. If I had 4 conductors (all the same length) in a wire... If I spliced 2 pairs of wire to create 2 wires instead of 4, would the resistance of running a signal through one of those pairs be less than that of one of the original conductors? I understand the resistance should be 1/2 the original, but I just wanted to make sure I understood properly.

 

Also, if the wire is REALLY BAD, as in 50 feet of 18-20 gauge, would this technique of splicing two conductors together help at all?

Lemme see if I got this right.  You have 4 wires and they are all of equal length (say 50 inches) and size (12 gauge).  You take 2 of the 4 wires and solder them end to end, and then when done with that, you take the other two wires and solder them end to end.  As a result, you now have just two wires of equal length and size.  Is this correct?

 

If that is correct, lets assume the original 4 wires measured 100 ohm each (4 x 100 ohms).  Then you take the first two wires and solder them end to end.  That would make one longer wire of 200 ohms (2 x 100 ohms).  Then you do the same to the other two wires also making a single wire at 200 ohms.

 

So now you have two longer wires 100 inches long at 200 ohms each.

 

Then you take the two wires of 100 inches at 200 ohms and solder them in parallel.  So what you have now is 1/2 x 200 ohms for a total of 100 ohms over the total length of the wire.  When you solder two wires of equal length and size you essentially are creating just a single wire out of the two because all the specs on the two wires are identical.

 

Now, lets get back to the original 4 wires (50 inches long, 12 guage, 100 ohms), and instead of soldering them together to make two wires, we solder them all together to make just one wire.  So, essentially, we have one wire, 50 inches long, but it has four "legs". (Sorry, couldn't think of a better word for it).  Since there are now four legs to the single wire and they are connected in parallel, we figure the total resistance as 1/4 (4 wires) times the total resistance of just one wire (100 ohms). So, 1/4 x 50 = 12.5 ohms).  So, four wires of equal length soldered in parallel in this case would equal just 12.5 ohms total resistance over the length of the 50 inches.

 

For some really helpful information about how much resistance is inside a given length of wire at a given size, I found a place that has a LOT of great information.

 

https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

 

Let me know if I can be of any further help.  If you want more help via email, I can do that too.  Just click on my information and you will find how to contact me via email.  Once again, glad to help.

 

[oneshock1]

5 minutes ago, kb5zue said:

Lemme see if I got this right.  You have 4 wires and they are all of equal length (say 50 inches) and size (12 gauge).  You take 2 of the 4 wires and solder them end to end, and then when done with that, you take the other two wires and solder them end to end.  As a result, you now have just two wires of equal length and size.  Is this correct?

 

If that is correct, lets assume the original 4 wires measured 100 ohm each (4 x 100 ohms).  Then you take the first two wires and solder them end to end.  That would make one longer wire of 200 ohms (2 x 100 ohms).  Then you do the same to the other two wires also making a single wire at 200 ohms.

 

So now you have two longer wires 100 inches long at 200 ohms each.

 

Then you take the two wires of 100 inches at 200 ohms and solder them in parallel.  So what you have now is 1/2 x 200 ohms for a total of 100 ohms over the total length of the wire.  When you solder two wires of equal length and size you essentially are creating just a single wire out of the two because all the specs on the two wires are identical.

 

Now, lets get back to the original 4 wires (50 inches long, 12 guage, 100 ohms), and instead of soldering them together to make two wires, we solder them all together to make just one wire.  So, essentially, we have one wire, 50 inches long, but it has four "legs". (Sorry, couldn't think of a better word for it).  Since there are now four legs to the single wire and they are connected in parallel, we figure the total resistance as 1/4 (4 wires) times the total resistance of just one wire (100 ohms). So, 1/4 x 50 = 12.5 ohms).  So, four wires of equal length soldered in parallel in this case would equal just 12.5 ohms total resistance over the length of the 50 inches.

 

For some really helpful information about how much resistance is inside a given length of wire at a given size, I found a place that has a LOT of great information.

 

https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

 

Let me know if I can be of any further help.  If you want more help via email, I can do that too.  Just click on my information and you will find how to contact me via email.  Once again, glad to help.

 

I really appreciated the help. I have a 4 conductor wire running through a wall going from an amplifier to another room where I am considering mounting a speaker. Problem is, the wire is of low gauge, something around 18 gauge, for about a 50 foot run. I know it's very unideal, but I was wondering if creating two pairs of wires in parallel would help at least a bit with sound quality considering the wire is, for lack of better term, well, shit. I've included a (very crude) illustration of the four wires just in case I didn't explain this properly. My question is, is this worth doing in my situation? 

[kb5zue]

1 minute ago, oneshock1 said:

I really appreciated the help. I have a 4 conductor wire running through a wall going from an amplifier to another room where I am considering mounting a speaker. Problem is, the wire is of low gauge, something around 18 gauge, for about a 50 foot run. I know it's very unideal, but I was wondering if creating two pairs of wires in parallel would help at least a bit with sound quality considering the wire is, for lack of better term, well, shit. I've included a (very crude) illustration of the four wires just in case I didn't explain this properly. My question is, is this worth doing in my situation? 

According to the chart at the website above, the total resistance of 18 gauge wire is only 6.385 ohms per 1000 feet.  That's pretty low of something 1000 feet long.  Since the wires are in parallel, it would be half that, so theoretically the total resistance would be only 3.1925 ohms per 1000 feet.  Surely not too much and that is for 1000 feet and you are only going 50 feet.

 

Personally, I wouldn't bother with it anyway given the small resistance and the short length of the total wire.  When I went to school for my electronics degree (https://www.redwoods.edu/) I had to come up with a project of something that I could build from scratch and demonstrate that it was safe to use and I had to demonstrate it to the instructor.  Since I am a fan of the old black and white monster movies, my first idea was a jacob's ladder.  The instructor shot that down real quick so my second idea was a tesla coil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil).

 

During the construction of the coil I used 1000 feet of 22 gauge wire around a 4 inch diameter piece of PVC pipe.  That was for the secondary coil.  For the primary coil, I used 1/4 inch diameter copper pipe, 28 feet long.  I used spare parts for the rest of it, one of them being the PSU out of an old PC.  At first, I was worried about the total resistance of the wire on the secondary but in the long run it really didn't amount to anything.

 

We had a blast with that thing when it came to doing my final presentation.  Unfortunately, after all was said and done, I had to dismantle it for safety reasons.  The instructor didn't want anyone to plug it in and turn it on if they didn't know what the hell they were doing.  But I did keep the secondary coil and it is in a box out in the garage.

 

To make a long story short, you can solder the wires just like in your drawing and that is fine but considering the short distance (50 feet), I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Good Luck and let me know how it goes.