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Solid vs. Stranded Wire: How to Choose?
Solid and stranded wires are used in electrical projects very often. In fact, each conductor is either solid or stranded. Read this blog to learn the differences between the two and decide once and for all which one is better for your electrical project.
First, let us look into the basic differences between solid and stranded wires. Stranded wire is the collection of thin wires grouped and connected with non-conductive insulation. A solid wire has only one strand of wiring, insulated with a non-conductive material.
Solid wire is slightly cheaper than stranded one because the manufacturing costs are lower.
Stranded wire has superior flexibility and bendability compared to solid wire.
Solid wire has anti-corrosive and weather-resistant properties and is resistant to mechanical impact.
Solid wire has superior current capacity compared to stranded wire, which is an important consideration for house wiring.
Stranded wire has more attenuation than solid wire.
In stranded conductors,
DC resistance is higher because the cross-section of the conductor contains air in addition to copper. Despite these differences, both solid and stranded wire are good for AC and DC applications alike.
When it comes to aluminum wiring, solid wires are quite rare, while stranded wires are used in residential applications here and there. Solid aluminum wiring was used in home wiring in the 1960s and 1970s, and are not recommended to use any longer because of the challenges that occur at cable termination.
While there are apparent differences between solid and stranded wire, choosing one over the other is often a matter of the personal choice of those who install the cabling.
Many electricians note that stranded wire is easier to pull in and out in several years when the wiring needs to be replaced because copper gets harder with years, and stranded wiring has less pulling tension.
Solid wire is usually used when the electrical project requires wiring sized 10 and smaller because it is not difficult to pull in these sizes, and it minimizes the probability of human error when the wiring is terminated because terminating smaller strands could be a challenge to some people. In sizes 8 and above, stranded wire is preferred.
Stranded wiring is used more often unless solid wiring is specified for the electrical project. The more complex the work is with many bends, the more likely stranded wire will be used. Stranded wire is the preferred choice in cases when flexibility is required. However, some electricians use solid wiring simply as a personal preference.
Some cables are available only with solid or stranded conductors, making the concerns irrelevant.
When it comes to data cables, or, in particular, category cables like CAT 5e and CAT 6, common preferences are different. For long runs, solid wire is the preferred choice because of the attenuation of stranded wire. Solid wire does not have the same current dissipation as the stranded wire. Stranded wire is used in patch cables because of its excellent flexibility.
For all kinds of solid and stranded wires, visit nassaunationalcable.com
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In some systems such as North American AWG, higher gauge wires are smaller.
There are minimum wire sizes which you cannot go below. Generally speaking, all wiring installed in buildings is already at this minimum and cannot be thinned further. For instance a 20/23 amp dryer in North America (20 amps 240V resistive load, 3 amp 120V motor load) requires 10 AWG wire, because of NEC 240.4(D) Going to thinner 12 AWG is not an option. Going to fatter 6 AWG is the only thing that can be discussed.
As for any potential savings, you can crunch the numbers for yourself, using any of the voltage drop calculators located across the web and intended for commercial mains electrical wiring.
Your misconception is that a load supplied less voltage will consume less current. That's not true for all loads. It works for resistive electric heating loads, but people who care about saving energy are using fewer and fewer of those.
Even so, the issue is that you are not simply "saving" the energy like you would if you were bucking the voltage down with a transformer. You ARE spending the energy - but you are spending it in an uncontrolled place - the wires themselves in the form of voltage drop, which heats the wires.
Let's say you take your power to a water heater. It is a 4800W resistive element, so 20 amps and 24 ohms. Clever you -- you add 1.2 ohms to the resistance of the wires, by running hundreds of meters of wire back and forth (so you meet the minimum size requirements and distribute the heat). So the 20A results in a 24V drop (-10%) giving 216V.
On paper, this sounds great. By reducing the voltage 10% to 216V, you reduce current by 10% to 18A. The heater is now drawing 3888W (formerly 4800W) or -19% from its former draw! *But hold on. The dropping resistance wasn't free. 24V x 18A of flow means 432W of "voltage drop losses" in the wire. Still not so bad, since for our 432W investment we save 912W. Time to practice the Nobel speech!
Except for one thing. It used to take 81 minutes for the water heater to heat its water from cold to target temperature. For some reason, it's now taking 100 minutes. Could this be related?
You bet it is. The core job (warm cold water) is still sitting there waiting to be done. By clipping the wings of the water heater, we only make it work longer. It still finishes, and the water heater uses the same amount of energy:
Well, that was a waste of time.
Oh, snap! We forgot about the 432W we're losing in the voltage drop!
Even worse, the wasted 720Wh is showing up in uncontrolled locations, like the walls of the house. Which means now an air conditioner must remove that extra heat. Assuming a 4:1 efficiency, that's another 180Wh. Or even if we want heat, we're getting electric resistive heating when we have far more efficient ground-source heat pump (3:1 better) so we're spending 720Wh to make heat we could have gotten for 240Wh with the heat pump. (so 480Wh spent the hard way).
So we went from 6480Wh before meddling, to ~7600Wh after meddling. We are now less efficient by 15%!
So no, increasing wire resistance to improve efficiency of appliances will tend to backfire. Generally, wire losses are considered to be a total loss.
Maybe. However in most installations, the wires aren't really long enough to account for significant voltage drop. This is a worthy area of study, but you have to "crunch the numbers" as to whether the savings in electricity is worth the extra cost of wires. It's "marginal at best" in most cases.
But here, we can use a quintessentially American concept, found in highly electric jetliners like the Airbus A350: Aluminum wire. America has had its "trial by fire" with aluminum and has dialed in how to use it properly. The laughably low cost of the stuff allows you to "throw cubic metal at the problem".
For instance, when people talk about running a 30A subpanel out to a garage for electric vehicle charging, we'll immediately advise "use 2 AWG aluminum". It's vast overkill, with 90A ampacity, but it's a "sweet spot" in wire pricing and costs no more than 30A wire. (it barely costs more than 65A aluminum wire). However its resistance and thus voltage drop is vastly superior, and results in real energy and cost savings over the life of an EV charge installation.
When loads are large (like EVs) and wire is long enough for voltage drop to arise as an issue, aluminum makes the difference between "economical" and "not economical" to enlarge wires. The rules of its handling must be faithfully followed, but they're not hard if suppliers cooperate by providing aluminum rated terminals.
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