Just another take on the rule of thumb that wire diameter doubles for each 3 AWG unit decrease (i.e., #3 is twice the diameter of #6).#3 diameter is 0.2294" while #6 is 0.1620"
Wire diameter doubles for each 6 AWG decrease.
Guide for understanding wire gauge and resistance
The AWG is a logarithmic scale, so given an know resistance or diameter for a certain gauge, you can quickly figure out the resistance and diameter of another gauge number, by addition and subtraction.
Resistance:
- AWG 15 is 10 mohm/m.
- Adding 3 doubles the resistance, and subtracting 3 halves it.
- Adding 10 multiplies the resistance by 10, and subtracting 10 it divides by 10.
Diameter:
- AWG 18 has a solid diameter of about 1mm
- Adding 6 halves the diameter, Subtracting 6 doubles the diameter
- Adding 20 divides the diameter by 10, and subtracting 20 multiplies the diameter by 10.
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