What can be powered with 18ga stranded wire?

[happy]

I ordered some 2/0 stranded wire and received 18 awg wire instead. The company told me to just keep the 18ga wire rather than ship it back, so now I'm wondering what can even be powered by such a tiny wire?

I have a computer fan + pwm controller I'll be using this with now since voltage drop is no concern & it pulls under 1 amp. However I have 100ft of wire & that will only take up about 10ft total. I was thinking maybe lights could use the wire, but those are always going to be longer runs, so not sure if that's a good idea? I hadn't purchased it yet, but was previously planning on running 14 awg for all my dc circuits in my van build (lights, phone/laptop charger, fridge, dc plugins, etc).

 

[OnTheRoadAgain]

About 10 Amps

Basic Voltage Drop Law
Vdrop = IR

Here's a calculator where you can calculate voltage drop

https://www.calculator.net/voltage-...ance=10&distanceunit=feet&amperes=1&x=53&y=15

 

[chrisski]

Not sure of the ampacity of the wire, but I would still check the voltage loss on the wire you want.

Before I knew of volatage loss, I extended a 5' small solar panel by 30 feet with small gauge wire, and the voltage loss was so much, that trickle charger only reached 7 volts to charge a 12 volt Battery.

Extending a small fan that is intended for a few inches to 10 feet may have the same result.

 

[JRG]

2/0 AWG isn't tooooo far off from 18 AWG

 

[happy]

Not sure of the ampacity of the wire, but I would still check the voltage loss on the wire you want.

Before I knew of volatage loss, I extended a 5' small solar panel by 30 feet with small gauge wire, and the voltage loss was so much, that trickle charger only reached 7 volts to charge a 12 volt Battery.

Extending a small fan that is intended for a few inches to 10 feet may have the same result.

Yes I was mostly concerned with the voltage drop - Just trying to figure out what devices (if any?) can handle lower voltages and still be functional. The fan works for my use case because lowering the voltage is one way to lower the RPMs of the fan (and I won't likely ever use the max rated RPM due to noise purposes)

I'll likely end up not using much or any of the wire, just thought I'd post here and see if anyone had some good ideas for ways to use it

 

[Diysolar123]

maybe a patch cord for your ts100 soldering iron, or door chime wiring hehe

I would not even think of using 18awg wire for, well, anything that was carrying more than a small amount of"power" the length of my arm.
oh wait, it would probably be ok to use with a resistor so you can precharge you inverter from your battery pack!!!

 

[JRG]

Don't know if you'll be using a DC-DC charger in your van, or what kind, but I planned to use 18AWG for the remote switch running from the back of my van to the dashboard.

 

[Alphacarina]

So long as your lights are LED's and the distance is less than 15 or 20 feet, I think your idea of jusing it for lights is pretty reasonable

Don