Difference between braided and solid wire......??

[BobT-47P15]

Is there much, if any, difference between braided, or stranded, or whatever you call a wire with several small strands---- in 

electrical capacity and transmission ability.....compared to a single strand, heavier piece of wire?

 

Hopefully that question makes sense.  Am asking, of course, in regard to our old cars.

 

I noticed that a lot (or maybe all) the wiring on my P15 is the "braided" or "stranded" type.  

 

Looking at a wiring diagram for a 1949 model Plymouth, it says wiring to dash illuminating bulbs is 16 gauge.  It does not

list wire gauges on my P15 manual diagram.  I'm guessing that the new wires I installed for my dash lights are less than

16 ga..........so thinking of finding some new, clearly marked 16 ga wire to re-do them.  And probably some other items

that I've replaced along the way.   I really should get a new wiring harness and call it good......

 

My car is still 6 volt.

 

What might your thoughts be on this matter?

Thanks.

 

 

  

[lahti35]

Somebody once told me that braided wire is used because its more flexible and won't break as easy... fact of fiction you be the judge! When you think about it solid wire stays in whatever shape you bend it but the other kind won't do that as well.

 

I can't imagine there would be much different in conductivity as the conductors are all touching each other and would seem to behave as a solid wire... At any rate I'm glad they make it... imagine trying to work with a solid wire OO battery cable!

Edited September 21, 2015 by lahti35

[DonaldSmith]

The "gauge" is the same for solid and braided wire.  As mentioned, use braided wire in cars, for its flexibility.    Houses use solid wire in most applications,since there is no flexing to be concerned with. 

 

I've heard that in soldering terminals to braided wire, don'it let the solder wick back into the wire, because it will make the end of the wire stiff and likely to break.  Of course, we want the solder to wick into the wire within the terminal.    

[40plyrod]

I was told that because electrons flow along the outside of the wire, the braided wire can carry more amperage than the solid wire, the more strands the better. I may have the terms wrong.

[BobT-47P15]

Interesting so far......

[Merle Coggins]

I was told that because electrons flow along the outside of the wire, the braided wire can carry more amperage than the solid wire, the more strands the better. I may have the terms wrong.

 

Why would electrons only flow along the outside of a wire? When a current is applied the electrons move from atom to atom throughout the entire conductor.

 

Yes, multi strand wire is more flexible since it uses a bunch of smaller wires in a group. The finer the wire the more flexible it is. That's why welding cable is more flexible than battery cable. Both are multi strand cables, but in the same gauge size the welding cable will have more wires of smaller gauge than the same rated battery cable.

You wouldn't want to use solid wire on your car. It would be a Bear to work with.

 

Merle

[plymouthcranbrook]

I can only say that the Master Electrician who ran new wires to my garage so I would have 220 volts said he only uses stranded. The solid is more trouble than it is worth.

[TodFitch]

It is not just a matter of solid wire being stiffer and harder to work with than stranded: Copper work hardens when it is flexed and once work hardened will break upon further flexing. So using solid wire in any application where there is vibration or movement is a recipe for failure sometime down the line.

[desoto1939]

Bob:

 

If I remember correctly Mother Mopar had way to telling the direct wire size on our cars/trucks.

 

There incorporated a striker or mark into the cloth covering.  It did not matter what the intital color of the wire is or could be. That was done to help with the connecting of the wires to the various components.

 

This is taken from memory so I might be a little off:

 

16 gage 1 striker mark

14 gage 2 striker marks

12 gage 3 striker marks

10 gage 4 striker marks.

 

I know some people prefer to use the 14 gage as the smallest gage when redoing the wire in a car.

 

Rhode Island wire does have the various gage wires in the colors and also with the appropriate sticker mark. So you could get a 1 striker on a 14 gage to make it look original if you are going for point judging but then you have the heaver gage wire instead the  thinner wire.

 

Are you still going to Carlise instead of Hershey this year. Let me know. If going to Hershey mabe we can meet up again by the same spot at the stairs that go over from the Chocolate field to the Green Field. Let me know.

 

Rich Hartung

Desoto1939@aol.com

[janan5243]

Everyone is partly right on this subject. Because of the vibrations  associated with vehicles, boats etc., stranded wire is used. Solid wire wood break at connections from the vibrations. Stranded wire also sheds heat better & has less resistance than solid wire. So theoretically, stranded wire could be a smaller guage than solid because it could handle a larger current than the same size solid.

[deathbound]

Bob:

 

If I remember correctly Mother Mopar had way to telling the direct wire size on our cars/trucks.

 

There incorporated a striker or mark into the cloth covering.  It did not matter what the intital color of the wire is or could be. That was done to help with the connecting of the wires to the various components.

 

This is taken from memory so I might be a little off:

 

16 gage 1 striker mark

14 gage 2 striker marks

12 gage 3 striker marks

10 gage 4 striker marks.

 

I know some people prefer to use the 14 gage as the smallest gage when redoing the wire in a car.

 

Rhode Island wire does have the various gage wires in the colors and also with the appropriate sticker mark. So you could get a 1 striker on a 14 gage to make it look original if you are going for point judging but then you have the heaver gage wire instead the  thinner wire.

 

Are you still going to Carlise instead of Hershey this year. Let me know. If going to Hershey mabe we can meet up again by the same spot at the stairs that go over from the Chocolate field to the Green Field. Let me know.

 

Rich Hartung

Desoto1939@aol.com

 

The following link explains in detail, the "tracers", solid, & "snakeskin" pattern for Mopar wire code identification.

 

http://oldmopar.com/oldmopar/wirecodes.html

[Jocko_51_B3B]

I know it is a side issue, but it is true that electons flow along the surface of wires and not through the middle. The reason is that because electrons have the same charge they repel each other. They are constantly trying to get as far away from each other as possible hence they swarm immediately to the outer surface of a wire as soon as voltage is applied.

[Ulu]

Why would electrons only flow along the outside of a wire? When a current is applied the electrons move from atom to atom throughout the entire conductor.

 

Some guy named Hall discovered this & it's called the Hall Effect. As I recall it works like this:.

 

They all don't only flow on the surface, but most of them do go there for this reason:

 

Electrons are all negatively charged & as such they all want to repel each other. They retreat as far from each other as they can in that wire, (up until they maybe build up enough charge to spit off a spark.) They "flee" from the center of the wire, because they're more crowded together there. They move to the surface, where they can avoid each other a bit more.

 

For every bit that the electron moves away from the center, radially, it moves about even farther from its neighbors, in a circumferential manner. Distance between electrons along the length of the wire doesn't change, but the average density drops.

 

BTW, the electrons want to spit off edges far more than surfaces, because they must crowd on those edges to avoid their neighbor electrons. This becomes a big deal when building an antenna. Lots of edges are good there. A high efficiency microwave emitter is almost nothing but edges.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Ulu

[48mirage]

Why would electrons only flow along the outside of a wire? When a current is applied the electrons move from atom to atom throughout the entire conductor.

 

Yes, multi strand wire is more flexible since it uses a bunch of smaller wires in a group. The finer the wire the more flexible it is. That's why welding cable is more flexible than battery cable. Both are multi strand cables, but in the same gauge size the welding cable will have more wires of smaller gauge than the same rated battery cable.

You wouldn't want to use solid wire on your car. It would be a Bear to work with.

 

Merle

Most of the electron flow is along the outside of the wire.  (Study large busses in substations, hint they are hollow)  But, we are talking about small amp loads in our cars the reason for the stranded wires goes back to the flexibility and the solid wire being work hardened and breaking.  For another variation marine grade wire is tinned before the insulation is applied to prevent corrosion of the copper.

[martybose]

When I ran a telco central office, my plant pulled over 1500 amps of 48V DC power, and the busses were solid copper bar stock.

 

Marty

[Merle Coggins]

Some guy named Hall discovered this & it's called the Hall Effect. As I recall it works like this:.

 

They all don't only flow on the surface, but most of them do go there for this reason:

 

Electrons are all negatively charged & as such they all want to repel each other. They retreat as far from each other as they can in that wire, (up until they maybe build up enough charge to spit off a spark.) They "flee" from the center of the wire, because they're more crowded together there. They move to the surface, where they can avoid each other a bit more.

 

For every bit that the electron moves away from the center, radially, it moves about even farther from its neighbors, in a circumferential manner. Distance between electrons along the length of the wire doesn't change, but the average density drops.

 

BTW, the electrons want to spit off edges far more than surfaces, because they must crowd on those edges to avoid their neighbor electrons. This becomes a big deal when building an antenna. Lots of edges are good there. A high efficiency microwave emitter is almost nothing but edges.

 

Thank you. I have been educated.

Merle

[Ulu]

I think they typically will make a hollow copper buss if it's really big, must span horizontally, & will sag if it's a simple solid bar. A tube the same weight spans much farther without sagging.

 

A tubular buss will run cooler, as the heat transfer is far faster (the tube having a very large surface compared to a bar.)

 

 

High A/C frequencies make this issue worse, because they really put the electrons on the edges and surfaces, as they's so "excited" compared to DC current electrons. If you want radiation to leap off that antenna, you can raise the current or you can raise the frequency.

[Ulu]

Thank you. I have been educated.

Merle

 

Me too.   I did some more reading on this because my direct experience with high frequencies is very limited & I'd forgotten about the eddy current phenomonon..

 

I thought this was interesting, because I didn't know just how how bad it gets with microwaves:

 

" ...at microwave frequencies the depth of the metal that the current flows in is about the same as a wavelength of visible light."

 

So at that frequency the electrons are so tortured that every one of them is ready to jump off that wire* like lemmings.

 

*wire, hair, whatever... you've all seen the photos of Tesla with sparks flying off his head and hands.

Edited September 22, 2015 by Ulu

[janan5243]

After my previous post, I also did some research to make sure my memory was still working. In our applications, stranded is used more because of the vibrations/breaking, flexibility & ease of installation. The better heat loss & lower resistance is not as important in low voltage DC applications. What I do find interesting is that, in high school, I took an advanced 1 year course in electricity & switching circuitry, a 2 year course in radio & television repair( tube type, Transistors were just becoming available) & training in electronics in the Navy, I don't remember any info on where the electrons traveled thru the wire, so an old dog learned something new.

[TodFitch]

. . . I don't remember any info on where the electrons traveled thru the wire, so an old dog learned something new.

I am not an electrical engineer so I could be totally off here, but it was my understanding that DC current flow was pretty much through the whole of the cross sectional area and that the surface conduction with AC current flows, with the higher the frequency the more the surface conduction.

[Ulu]

...In our applications, stranded is used more because of the vibrations/breaking, flexibility & ease of installation. The better heat loss & lower resistance is not as important in low voltage DC applications...

 

 

Yeah, the practical considerations trump everything there.

 

I come from the vac tube days too. Dad taught me to fix TVs when I was 13 & he was a radar guy. I built a Packard Bell 5-tube radio in school, a small computer with no tubes, but lots of wires & switches. Since I've built a few custom audio setups and wired cars and computers.

 

I did take a couple EE courses in college, but I was more interested in programming and thermodynamics than things like power transmission and circuit design.