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2 Installation
26 Series N6700 User’s Guide
Wire Size
WARNING
FIRE HAZARD Select a wire size large enough to carry short-circuit current
without overheating. To satisfy safety requirements, load wires must be
heavy enough not to overheat while carrying the short-circuit output current
of the unit (refer to the following table).
Along with conductor temperature, you must also consider voltage
drop when selecting wire sizes. The following table lists the
resistance for various wire sizes and the maximum lengths to limit
the voltage drop to 1.0 V per lead for various currents.
Note that the minimum wire size required to prevent overheating
may not be large enough to prevent over-voltage tripping or maintain
good regulation. Under most conditions, the load wires should also be
heavy enough to limit the voltage drop to no more than l.0 V per lead.
To help prevent nuisance tripping of the over-voltage circuit, select a
wire size sufficient to handle the FULL output current of the unit no
matter what the intended load current or current limit setting
Load lead resistance is also an important factor relating to the CV
stability of the instrument when remote sensing capacitive loads. If
high capacitance loads are expected, you should not use wire gauges
heavier than 12 to 14 AWG for long runs of load lead.
Wire size Current-carrying capacity in Amps
for stranded copper wire
Resistance Max. Length to Limit Voltage to 1 V/Lead
for 5 A for 10 A for 20A for 50 A
AWG 2 wires bundled 4 wires bundled Ω
ΩΩ
Ω/foot Wire length in feet
20 7.8 6.9 0.0102 20 x x x
18 14.5 12.8 0.0064 30 15 x x
16 18.2 16.1 0.0040 50 25 x x
14 29.3 25.9 0.0025 80 40 20 x
12 37.6 33.2 0.0016 125 63 30 x
10 51.7 45.7 0.0010 200 100 50 20
8 70.5 62.3 0.0006 320 160 80 32
6 94 83 0.0004 504 252 126 50
Area in mm
2
2 wires bundled 4 wires bundled Ω
ΩΩ
Ω/meter Wire length in meters
0.5 7.8 6.9 0.0401 5 x x x
0.75 9.4 8.3 0.0267 7.4 x x x
1 12.7 11.2 0.0200 10 5 x x
1.5 15.0 13.3 0.0137 14.6 7.2 x x
2.5 23.5 20.8 0.0082 24.4 12.2 6.1 x
4 30.1 26.6 0.0051 39.2 19.6 9.8 3.9
6 37.6 33.2 0.0034 58 29 14.7 5.9
10 59.2 52.3 0.0020 102 51 25 10.3
Notes: 1. Capacity for AWG wires derived from MIL-W-5088B. Max. ambient temp: 55°C. Max. wire temp: 105°C.
2. Capacity for metric wires are derived from IE Publication 335-1.
3. Capacity of aluminum wire is approximately 84% of that listed for copper wire.
4. “x” indicates wire is not rated for the maximum output current of the power module.
5. Because of wire inductance considerations, it is also recommended that you keep your load leads twisted, tie wrapped,
or bundled together and less than 50 feet (14.7 meters) in length per lead.