I need to put a ground strap in a device I am working on and it needs to be able to handle 30 A for 60 seconds without rising above 105C (assuming ambient of 25C). What is the smallest diameter wire I can use? It needs to be 7" long. I have googled high and low and not found anything useful in this case.
I get 14 AWG having a 62 K temperature rise after passing 30 A for 60 s. (This assumes that none of the heat gets out of the wire.) 16 AWG had a 155 K rise and so would not meet your requirements.
I put together a little spreadsheet for calculating temperature rises in PCB traces and wires. Let me know if you would like a copy of it.
The NEC is going to say 10ga copper, not what he asked. Maybe the Neher McGrath formula in 310.15 would be relevant. Gut feel? 18 or 16 would do what he asked. What is the ambient temp and insulation?
Without flux? That's not solder wick. Its just braided wire, which was around for a LONG, LONG time before any flux was added to make solder wick. Braided wire was used to ground the back of the engine block to car and truck bodies so you could listen to a radio, rather than ignition noise.
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Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
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Not just coax. I had about 6,000 feet of three conductor CATV converter control cable with a fine copper braid salvaged from a CATV repair center I ran back in the mid '80s. A bottle of Kester RMA flux was always on my bench, and I used the wet wick method to repair thousands of circuit boards. After pulling the wires and paper out of the shield it would collapse into a flat 1/8" wide braid. I wrapped it on old solder spools and empty solder wick holders. I still have some of the cable left, and a quart or two of Kester RMA flux.
BTW, I have used the shield RG174 and cheap copper shielded RG-59 coax for larger parts, but I haven't done much with through hole for about 10 years. The only small coax I have on hand is silver plated teflon, and I'm not going to waste it by using it as solder wick.
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Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
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