What is thickest gauge wire that can be inserted into Arduino headers?

What is thickest gauge wire that can be inserted into Arduino headers OR breadboard? The standard I see is 22 gauge, however if I'm going to buy more wire I want the most amp for my buck! Can 22 gauge wire support up to 1 amp? :grin:

depends on voltage and how long you run it (heck "they" say you can run an amp though 30 gauge) ... though none of the parts on the arduino can sustain an amp for long

Osgeld:
depends on voltage and how long you run it (heck "they" say you can run an amp though 30 gauge) ... though none of the parts on the arduino can sustain an amp for long

Only the wire insulation is a factor in it's maximum voltage rating, not it's current rating, which is only dependent on its gauge thickness regardless of the voltage used in a circuit.

Here is a current Vs gauge chart that might help the OP:

The following chart is a guideline of ampacity or copper wire current carrying capacity following the Handbook of Electronic Tables and Formulas for American Wire Gauge. As you might guess, the rated ampacities are just a rule of thumb. In careful engineering the voltage drop, insulation temperature limit, thickness, thermal conductivity, and air convection and temperature should all be taken into account. The Maximum Amps for Power Transmission uses the 700 circular mils per amp rule, which is very very conservative. The Maximum Amps for Chassis Wiring is also a conservative rating, but is meant for wiring in air, and not in a bundle. For short lengths of wire, such as is used in battery packs you should trade off the resistance and load with size, weight, and flexibility. NOTE: For installations that need to conform to the National Electrical Code, you must use their guidelines. Contact your local electrician to find out what is legal!

Lefty

Osgeld:
depends on voltage and how long you run it (heck "they" say you can run an amp though 30 gauge) ... though none of the parts on the arduino can sustain an amp for long

You can, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

For starters you'll have quite a voltage drop along the wire.

There is not much point in getting thick wire as you should only draw 40mA or less from an arduino pin. Anything you can plug in will take that.

I bought some hookup wire initially from Radio Shack that I had trouble fitting in some breadboards (as I recall, the female pins in the Arduino itself were ok with the larger wire). Eventually after getting 22 gauge wire, I recycled it, so I don't remember the exact size, but I believe it was 20 gauge.

encryptor:
What is thickest gauge wire that can be inserted into Arduino headers OR breadboard? The standard I see is 22 gauge, however if I'm going to buy more wire I want the most amp for my buck! Can 22 gauge wire support up to 1 amp? :grin:

18 gauge wire is definitely too large. I have a 500 ft roll of 18/2 though that I used for controlling the lawn sprinkler solenoid valves at my house and I still have a LOT of it left, so I try to use it whenever possible. It can work in the Arduino headers, but you really need to swage it a bit and reshape it into a square. Filing it down slightly also works. The 24 gauge wire that is in CAT-5 cable kind of works, but is thin enough that it will often come out when you are just moving the board around.

20-22 gauge is just about right and can handle any generic Arduino load that you put on it, as well as things like small DC motors, etc that draw < 1.5A.

Buy a screw terminal shield from crossroads.

Oversized pins can damage the sockets by stretching the internal contacts and making them too loose.

NavyVet1959:
18 gauge wire is definitely too large. I have a 500 ft roll of 18/2 though that I used for controlling the lawn sprinkler solenoid valves at my house and I still have a LOT of it left, so I try to use it whenever possible. It can work in the Arduino headers, but you really need to swage it a bit and reshape it into a square. Filing it down slightly also works. The 24 gauge wire that is in CAT-5 cable kind of works, but is thin enough that it will often come out when you are just moving the board around.

Why resurrect a thread from 2012?

.

larryd:
Why resurrect a thread from 2012?

.

Because my comment is still valid and was not a repeat of previous information and someone else might stumble across this thread in the future and find the information useful. I stumbled across the thread while looking to see what wire was needed and relayed the results that I had had with wire that I tried.

I have subsequently purchased a 500 ft roll of the 20 gauge "bell wire" from Home Depot and I find it to work for this task. It would be nice if someone made a tool that could be used to swage the ends into a square profile though since the 20 gauge wire is slightly tight. I don't have any 22 gauge wire to test though to see if it is "just right".

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aarg:
Oversized pins can damage the sockets by stretching the internal contacts and making them too loose.

+1 to what he said as that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Do you think shoving an oversized round peg in a square hole is a good idea? Those header connector are designed for square pins, not round wires. If you like intermittent connections, this is a good way to create them.

If you want to continue with the practice, at least use the best sized wire which is #22 awg.

The headers are designed for .025 inch square pins, #22 awg is .02535 which is as good as you can get, fit wise with awg sizes. Your #20 awg is .03196 nominally or .007 oversized which will absolutely overstress and open up the connector.

Also consider the thermostat wire you’re using is cheap untinned building and trades wire so it is subject to oxidation. That stuff is designed for either twisted or under-screw gas tight connections which makes it totally inappropriate for low current breadboard use.

Consider all the above. Then consider that even with the best suited size, the round wire simply doesn’t make good, reliable contact with a header contact. It is easy to prove this, pull a single female socket contact out of a header connector and try to get a wire to hold in the contacts. You cannot do it. It will fall right out. The female contacts will grip a flat surface and create contact force which lowers the resistance. A round shape will have very little contact area resulting a high resistance, intermittent connection.

NavyVet1959:
Because my comment is still valid and was not a repeat of previous information and someone else might stumble across this thread in the future and find the information useful. I stumbled across the thread while looking to see what wire was needed and relayed the results that I had had with wire that I tried.

I have subsequently purchased a 500 ft roll of the 20 gauge "bell wire" from Home Depot and I find it to work for this task. It would be nice if someone made a tool that could be used to swage the ends into a square profile though since the 20 gauge wire is slightly tight. I don't have any 22 gauge wire to test though to see if it is "just right".

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, again. Just wanted to say that this helped me, a year later so I created an account specifically to validate this. Many times in recent weeks have threads varying from a year old (like this thread) up to 12 years old (for a repair on my truck last week) had information and random bumps that totally helped me in your past selves' future.

Thanks internet stranger for helping me choose a proper gauged wire! I'll be using it for an Arduino Midi controller project, as a guide I am following suggested using tinned wire and I was debating between 18AWG or 20AWG wire.

notaficus:
Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, again. Just wanted to say that this helped me, a year later so I created an account specifically to validate this. Many times in recent weeks have threads varying from a year old (like this thread) up to 12 years old (for a repair on my truck last week) had information and random bumps that totally helped me in your past selves' future.

Thanks internet stranger for helping me choose a proper gauged wire! I'll be using it for an Arduino Midi controller project, as a guide I am following suggested using tinned wire and I was debating between 18AWG or 20AWG wire.

Interestingly, I had just started working on an Arduino project and installing some wires in the sockets when the notification email came in for your reply. I probably hadn't worked on anything Arduino related in quite a few months. I had completely forgotten that I had made a post about this back in 2017. The project is basically about determining the water level in a container and performing certain actions depending upon the level of the water. For example, if the water is above the high sensor, turn on a 12VDC bilge pump until it gets below the low sensor. For this project, I'm using shorter pieces of the 20 AWG wire to connect to the board, but then using some long sections of CAT5 twisted pairs to go to the container. The resistance of the long section of CAT5 twisted pair is noticeable on my tests since the analogRead() is returning a values of around 14 when the ends are shorted together. When placed in tap water and an inch or two apart, the value returned goes up to 360. This is with about a half inch of the copper exposed. From what I've read, CAT5 cable varies in gauge depending upon manufacturer. I don't know exactly the gauge of this wire since it no longer has the outer covering on it, but it's pretty thin. I salvaged it from some old CAT5 cables that were being ripped out of a building.

Damn, must be getting old... I'm starting to ramble again... :slight_smile:

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Dupont headers are designed for 0.65mm square pins, so 0.6 to 0.65mm diameter wire is a good size. That's available as single-core hookup wire from major suppliers.

If you use wire diameters or cross-sectional area instead of gauges you never have to look things up, caliper gauges and micrometers measure inches or mm and dimensional diagrams of connectors also use inches or mm (typically both).

Buy a screw terminal shield from crossroads.

CrossroadsFencing.com/BBobuino

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