Can i use this wire

[dwl2234]

Is this wire good enough for psu cables. Here in India we dont follow guage system. Will this wire be able to handle the current? It can take 1100v no issue with that what about current.?

What is the amount of current that flows through these wires and voltage across them in PSUz. India follows 240v system unlike US (110v)

 

Would like to learn.

[Norwegiantweaker]

10 minutes ago, dcakewalkgamer said:

Is this wire good enough for psu cables. Here in India we dont follow guage system. Will this wire be able to handle the current? It can take 1100v no issue with that what about current.?

What is the amount of current that flows through these wires and voltage across them in PSUz. India follows 240v system unlike US (110v)

 

Would like to learn.

wait hold up. what are you going to use this wire for ??? 

[dwl2234]

2 minutes ago, Norwegiantweaker said:

wait hold up. what are you going to use this wire for ??? 

Full length custon cables for my modular psu.

[Senzelian]

Even in India, you follow a gauge system and it is even printed on the label: 1SQ MM = 1 mm²
That equates to roughly AWG 17.

 

What most manufacturers use is AWG 18, sometimes AWG 16.

So the wire you have would work just fine.

[Norwegiantweaker]

Just now, Senzelian said:

Even in India, you follow a gauge system and it is even printed on the label: 1SQ MM = 1 mm²
That equates to roughly AWG 17.

 

What most manufacturers use is AWG 18, sometimes AWG 16.

So the wire you have would work just fine.

wouldn't resistance and conductivity come into play or isnt that much of a matter ? 

[Senzelian]

1 minute ago, Norwegiantweaker said:

wouldn't resistance and conductivity come into play or isnt that much of a matter ? 

The wire gauge is part of defining those factors. The other part is the material itself. But we can assume that the cable isn't made out of wood, so it should be fine.  

[dwl2234]

2 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Even in India, you follow a gauge system and it is even printed on the label: 1SQ MM = 1 mm²
That equates to roughly AWG 17.

 

What most manufacturers use is AWG 18, sometimes AWG 16.

So the wire you have would work just fine

So, max current that can flow is 12A in 17 awg, same here for 1sqmm 12A. No worries right. 

[Senzelian]

5 minutes ago, dcakewalkgamer said:

So, max current that can flow is 12A in 17 awg, same here for 1sqmm 12A. No worries right. 

Yup.
iirc ATX specifies only 8A per wire under full load.

 

Edit: But double check if you're not sure. You now know the wire gauge so you can figure that out.

[Unimportant]

1 minute ago, Senzelian said:

Yup.
iirc ATX specifies only 8A per wire under full load.

But not a single PSU has a overcurrent protection that trips at that low a current.

Overcurrent protection/Fuses are mainly meant to protect the wiring against overcurrent. The safe bet is to use wire that can at least handle the trip current of the PSU.

[dwl2234]

9 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Yup.
iirc ATX specifies only 8A per wire under full load.

Thank you. Its weird that whole world follows awg or swg and mostly 16 and 18 are well known and available at ease but for us over here its oddly 17awg, that too rebranded with different type of specification cross sectional area.

 

I searched over amazon india for 16/18 awg all i found is speaker wire which has quite big insulation and crimping was not possible. And price was around 2000INR for 50feet roughly 30$

 

While this wire costed me 10$ odd for 100meters. Funny in some sense. DIY electronics is PIA in India. No offense. Sorry if hurt.

[dwl2234]

17 minutes ago, James Evens said:

@dcakewalkgamer In contrast to the other opinions: this wire isn't suitable!

It is a single core wire and not multi core.

Why do we need a multicore for psu cables?

[dwl2234]

1 minute ago, James Evens said:

Solid core tend to break and is less flexible. 

If you place them in the wall and bend them just one time in a not to tight loop they are fine but for PC cables they aren't the right choice.

Its not solid core don't know if i am unable to get you or something. It has 32strands in it. In india we dont use solid copper block wires, if that's what you mean? Even for house wiring we use the stranded version never saw some one using solid core.

[dwl2234]

4 minutes ago, James Evens said:

Your cable is clearly marked as single core wire. Did you checked that this cable is 32 strands?

I don't know what you convention is but here in India single core means single wire, while dual core means 2 such wire together attached edge to edge. Like this.

[mariushm]

AWG 18 is a cable that has around 0.75mm² diameter for the wires inside (around 1mm² total diameter because of the insulation), and is made of multiple thin strands. The resistance of the wire is around 21 mOhm (0.021 ohm per meter)...if you get a wire that's 30mOhm per meter or better, you should be fine. (note you need a good multimeter to measure such small resistance values)... and use the REL feature of the multimeter to remove the leads' resistance before measuring (short leads and press REL to zero the leads)

 

You need multiple strands because you crimp the pins on the wires, the metal of the pins presses down into the strands of wire compressing it and making good connection.

A solid core (one big thick wire) will make it very hard to attach the pins to the wires, as the thick wire will not compress.

 

You need to be careful what wires you get because wires like those cheap UXCELL you linked to often mix strands of copper wire with strands of STEEL wire or even ALUMINUM because steel and aluminum is cheaper than copper. So you get a wire that's thick enough and has lots of strands, but the resistance of the wire is much higher than 21 mOhm per meter. This can make the wires overheat, especially when covered in sleeve, and can cause the sleeving and insulation to melt or even burn up.

 

You can check if a wire has steel using a magnet and you can check if the wire has aluminum strands by using a lighter on the wires. Aluminum wires will coil up while copper will remain nice and just oxidize (go black with smoke)

 

So note besides wire you also need a crimping tool for the pins, and you need pins (can't reuse the ones that came with your psu) and a pin extractor tool (you can make one with two needles or tweezers but it's not easy)

I personally use an Engineer PA-20 crimping tool, works great with lots of connectors not just the miniFit Jr. series (used for pci-e and mb connectors): https://www.tme.eu/en/details/fut.pa-20/crimping-tools-for-terminals/engineer/pa-20/

 

 

[dwl2234]

8 hours ago, mariushm said:

AWG 18 is a cable that has around 0.75mm² diameter for the wires inside (around 1mm² total diameter because of the insulation), and is made of multiple thin strands. The resistance of the wire is around 21 mOhm (0.021 ohm per meter)...if you get a wire that's 30mOhm per meter or better, you should be fine. (note you need a good multimeter to measure such small resistance values)... and use the REL feature of the multimeter to remove the leads' resistance before measuring (short leads and press REL to zero the leads)

 

You need multiple strands because you crimp the pins on the wires, the metal of the pins presses down into the strands of wire compressing it and making good connection.

A solid core (one big thick wire) will make it very hard to attach the pins to the wires, as the thick wire will not compress.

 

You need to be careful what wires you get because wires like those cheap UXCELL you linked to often mix strands of copper wire with strands of STEEL wire or even ALUMINUM because steel and aluminum is cheaper than copper. So you get a wire that's thick enough and has lots of strands, but the resistance of the wire is much higher than 21 mOhm per meter. This can make the wires overheat, especially when covered in sleeve, and can cause the sleeving and insulation to melt or even burn up.

 

You can check if a wire has steel using a magnet and you can check if the wire has aluminum strands by using a lighter on the wires. Aluminum wires will coil up while copper will remain nice and just oxidize (go black with smoke)

 

So note besides wire you also need a crimping tool for the pins, and you need pins (can't reuse the ones that came with your psu) and a pin extractor tool (you can make one with two needles or tweezers but it's not easy)

I personally use an Engineer PA-20 crimping tool, works great with lots of connectors not just the miniFit Jr. series (used for pci-e and mb connectors): https://www.tme.eu/en/details/fut.pa-20/crimping-tools-for-terminals/engineer/pa-20/

 

 

Polycab is a reputed brand in india they dont mix Copper with steel n aluminum. Only difference is it is raw copper rather than what you guys get say tinned copper which can withstand more heat i believe. I dont think its OFC too. 

It is cheap becz the companies here only make 1sqmm and 1.5sqmm for consumers, solid core is not made in general unless you make explicit request to company.

Not much option for consumer hence the cost is quite less. More over if u see ppp of usd to inr 900inr is not cheap.

[mariushm]

I was talking about that Shomy Red stuff, the last picture you uploaded. Some of those strands could be steel or aluminum.

 

Anyway, you're gonna need 50 meters of wire, maybe even more, if you want to change the whole 24pin atx cable and the eps cables and so on.

 

Check and see if TME.EU will ship to India, they're a European distributor of electronic components which stocks smaller manufacturers.

 

Here's the category (single core wires, in the range of AWG16-AWG18) : long link

Here's 30m for 17$, $15 each if you get 3 spools minimum: https://www.tme.eu/en/details/541816-bk005/single-core-cable-strand/alpha-wire/541816-bk005/

0.35$ per meter, but you must buy 100 meters so 35$ for 100m : https://www.tme.eu/en/details/ul-csa-har-18bk/single-core-cable-strand/lapp-kabel/4180601/

 

Farnell/Newark/Element14/Arrow*  also has their localized website for India : https://in.element14.com

* It's Farnell in some regions, they kept name as Element14 in other regions, in US/Canada they're known as Newark, and recently they've been bought by another distributor called Arrow, so they'll probably rename all as arrow at some point.

Here's the single wires (again awg16..awg18 , at least 30m or more rolls) : long link

You have 100m spools over various colors for ~1250 Rs for example blue ,  you have AWG 16 black for 2100 Rs , and they used to stock 305 meter spools of 18AWG for 3400 Rs but it's no longer stocked ... there's 16 AWG 305m spools for 8000 Rs which isn't a great price when you can get 100m spools for 2100Rs. 

[dwl2234]

20 hours ago, mariushm said:

I was talking about that Shomy Red stuff, the last picture you uploaded. Some of those strands could be steel or aluminum.

 

Anyway, you're gonna need 50 meters of wire, maybe even more, if you want to change the whole 24pin atx cable and the eps cables and so on.

 

Check and see if TME.EU will ship to India, they're a European distributor of electronic components which stocks smaller manufacturers.

 

Here's the category (single core wires, in the range of AWG16-AWG18) : long link

Here's 30m for 17$, $15 each if you get 3 spools minimum: https://www.tme.eu/en/details/541816-bk005/single-core-cable-strand/alpha-wire/541816-bk005/

0.35$ per meter, but you must buy 100 meters so 35$ for 100m : https://www.tme.eu/en/details/ul-csa-har-18bk/single-core-cable-strand/lapp-kabel/4180601/

 

Farnell/Newark/Element14/Arrow*  also has their localized website for India : https://in.element14.com

* It's Farnell in some regions, they kept name as Element14 in other regions, in US/Canada they're known as Newark, and recently they've been bought by another distributor called Arrow, so they'll probably rename all as arrow at some point.

Here's the single wires (again awg16..awg18 , at least 30m or more rolls) : long link

You have 100m spools over various colors for ~1250 Rs for example blue ,  you have AWG 16 black for 2100 Rs , and they used to stock 305 meter spools of 18AWG for 3400 Rs but it's no longer stocked ... there's 16 AWG 305m spools for 8000 Rs which isn't a great price when you can get 100m spools for 2100Rs. 

Thanks for the info mate. Never known about Element14 till now.