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connect a large wire to a car's temperature gauge

Hi. I want to use a car's temperature gauge and sender in order to measure the temperature of the water going through an installation at home. The reason is that if it works, this setup would be cheaper than anything else given the high costs of shipping to where I leave . The distance of the gauge from the sender will be 30 ft give or take. This would distort the indication of the gauge given that the gauge measures the resistance of the circuit between the sender , the wires and the gauge.

How can I calculate the AWG of the wires that I should use for this setup ?

Reply to
Android Programmer
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"Android Programmer" asks:

The current involved is only about 3ma. Assumming that the voltages involved are a few volts, and that you want to keep voltage drops to under 0.1V, max allowable R = V/I = 0.1V/0.003A = 33 ohms. Just about any wire is going to be waaaaaaay less than that.

My recommendation: Use a 50' 3-conductor AWG 16 outdoor extension cord, the kind with the tough orange outer clading and

3-prong rubber connectors on the ends. Chop connectors off, strip ends, and connect to equipment. Available at hardware stores from Oklahoma City, USA to Nairobi, Kenya, to Perth, Australia. In a word, "ubiquitous". Price: $10 to $20.

Failing that, use any scrap wire around AWG 16 that you can get your hands on.

Either way, do watch the connections. High-resistance joints will screw-up your temp readings far more than wire losses.

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Cheers,
Robbie Hatley
lonewolf [at] well [dot] com
Reply to
Robbie Hatley

You can buy a kitchen thermometer for under $5.00 and measure the temperature much more accurately than an auto temp gauge.

Reply to
hrhofmann

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