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[Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] For what it's worth. This is a handy formula to calculate wire gauge given the gauge number. 0.3248*exp(-0.1159*gauge)=wire diameter(inch) This formula works for any gauge from (0 to 40) or larger although it was only checked with the following table. Note for 00 gauge enter -1, for 000 enter -2 and 0000 -3. Brown & Sharpe Wire Gauge (from CRC 53rd edition) Gauge Dia 0000 0.46 000 0.4096 00 0.3648 0 0.3249 1 0.2893 2 0.2576 3 0.2294 4 0.2043 5 0.1819 6 0.162 7 0.1443 8 0.1285 9 0.1144 10 0.1019 11 0.09074 12 0.08081 13 0.07196 14 0.06408 15 0.05707 16 0.05082 17 0.04526 18 0.0403 19 0.03589 20 0.03196 21 0.02846 22 0.02535 23 0.02257 24 0.0201 25 0.0179 26 0.01594 27 0.01419 28 0.01264 29 0.01126 30 0.01003 31 0.008928 32 0.00795 33 0.00708 34 0.006304 35 0.005614 36 0.005 37 0.004453 38 0.003965 39 0.003531 40 0.003145

Wire gauge refers to the thickness of a wire. It is a description, not an actual measure, of the width of a wire. There are several standardized wire gauge systems. Two of the ones most commonly used are the American wire gauge (AWG) and metric gauge.
Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions
American Wire Gauge
o Diameter is calculated from the American wire gauge value using the formula D(AWG) = 0.005 x 92^ ((36-AWG)/39)inch. In the formula, for the American wire gauge values 00, 000, and 0000, use the numbers -1, -2, and -3, respectively. As the diameter of the wire decreases, the American wire gauge value increases. For example, a 20-gauge wire is approximately 0.032 inches in diameter. (0.005 x 92^((36-20)/39) o

2 3

Circular mils (CM) are used in the American wire gauge system to designate wires that are larger than 0000. A circular mil is a unit of area equivalent to the area of a circle with a diameter of 1 mil.
o The diameter of a wire can be calculated from circular mils using the formula D = CM or D = CM^(1/2). For example, if you have a wire that is 250,000 CM, it is 500 mils in diameter. (250,000)

Metric Gauge
o

1 2 3

Metric gauges are calculated by multiplying the diameter of the wire, in millimeters, by 10. For example, if you have a wire that is 5 mm in diameter, it is a 50-gauge wire.
o To determine the diameter of a wire from its metric gauge, divide the gauge by 10. That will give you the diameter of the wire in millimeters. For example, if you have a 20-gauge wire, it is 2 mm in diameter. o

As the diameter of the wire increases, the metric gauge value also increases.

Read more: How to Calculate Wire Gauge |

eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5840357_calculate-wiregauge.html#ixzz1H2UaOEyf

onductor size
It should be common-sense knowledge that liquids flow through large-diameter pipes easier than they do through small-diameter pipes (if you would like a practical illustration, try drinking a liquid through straws of different diameters). The same general principle holds for the flow of electrons through conductors: the broader the cross-sectional area (thickness) of the conductor, the more room for electrons to flow, and consequently, the easier it is for flow to occur (less resistance). Electrical wire is usually round in cross-section (although there are some unique exceptions to this rule), and comes in two basic varieties: solid and stranded. Solid copper wire is just as it sounds: a single, solid strand of copper the whole length of the wire. Stranded wire is composed of smaller strands of solid copper wiretwisted together to form a single, larger conductor. The greatest benefit of stranded wire is its mechanical flexibility, being able to withstand repeated bending and twisting much better than solid copper (which tends to fatigue and break after time). Wire size can be measured in several ways. We could speak of a wire's diameter, but since its really the cross-sectional area that matters most regarding the flow of electrons, we are better off designating wiresize in terms of area.

The wire cross-section picture shown above is, of course, not drawn to scale. The diameter is shown as being 0.1019 inches. Calculating the area of the cross-section with the formula Area = r2, we get an area of 0.008155 square inches:

These are fairly small numbers to work with, so wire sizes are often expressed in measures of thousandths-of-an-inch, or mils. For the illustrated example, we would say that the diameter of the wire was 101.9 mils (0.1019 inch times 1000). We could also, if we wanted, express the area of the wire in the unit of square mils, calculating that value with the same circle-area formula, Area = r2:

However, electricians and others frequently concerned with wire size use another unit of area measurement tailored specifically for wire's circular cross-section. This special unit is called the circular mil (sometimes abbreviated cmil). The sole purpose for having this special unit of measurement is to eliminate the need to invoke the factor (3.1415927 . . .) in the formula for calculating area, plus the need to figure wire radiuswhen you've been given diameter. The formula for calculating the circular-mil area of a circular wire is very simple:

Because this is a unit of area measurement, the mathematical power of 2 is still in effect (doubling the width of a circle will always quadruple its area, no matter what units are used, or if the width of that circle is expressed in terms of radius or diameter). To illustrate the difference between measurements in square mils and measurements in circular mils, I will compare a circle with a square, showing the area of each shape in both unit measures:

And for another size of wire:

Obviously, the circle of a given diameter has less cross-sectional area than a square of width and height equal to the circle's diameter: both units of area measurement reflect that. However, it should be clear that the unit of "square mil" is really tailored for the convenient determination of a square's area, while "circular mil" is tailored for the convenient determination of a circle's area: the respective formula for each is simpler to work with. It must be understood that both units are valid for measuring the area of a shape, no matter what shape that may be. The conversion between circular mils and square mils is a simple ratio: there are (3.1415927 . . .) square mils to every 4 circular mils. Another measure of cross-sectional wire area is the gauge. The gauge scale is based on whole numbers rather than fractional or decimal inches. The larger the gauge number, the skinnier the wire; the smaller thegauge number, the fatter the wire. For those acquainted with shotguns, this inversely-proportional measurement scale should sound familiar. The table at the end of this section equates gauge with inch diameter, circular mils, and square inches for solid wire. The larger sizes of wire reach an end of the common gauge scale (which naturally tops out at a value of 1), and are represented by a series of zeros. "3/0" is another way to represent "000," and is pronounced "triple-

ought." Again, those acquainted with shotguns should recognize the terminology, strange as it may sound. To make matters even more confusing, there is more than one gauge "standard" in use around the world. For electrical conductor sizing, the American Wire Gauge (AWG), also known as the Brown and Sharpe (B&S) gauge, is the measurement system of choice. In Canada and Great Britain, the British Standard Wire Gauge (SWG) is the legal measurement system for electrical conductors. Other wire gaugesystems exist in the world for classifying wire diameter, such as the Stubs steel wire gauge and the Steel Music Wire Gauge (MWG), but these measurement systems apply to non-electrical wire use. The American Wire Gauge (AWG) measurement system, despite its oddities, was designed with a purpose: for every three steps in the gauge scale, wire area (and weight per unit length) approximately doubles. This is a handy rule to remember when making rough wire size estimations! For very large wire sizes (fatter than 4/0), the wire gauge system is typically abandoned for cross-sectional area measurement in thousands of circular mils (MCM), borrowing the old Roman numeral "M" to denote a multiple of "thousand" in front of "CM" for "circular mils." The following table of wire sizes does not show any sizes bigger than 4/0 gauge, because solid copper wire becomes impractical to handle at those sizes. Stranded wire construction is favored, instead.

WIRE TABLE FOR SOLID, ROUND COPPER CONDUCTORS

Size Diameter Cross-sectional area Weight AWG inches cir. mils sq. inches lb/1000 ft =============================================================== 4/0 -------- 0.4600 ------- 211,600 ------ 0.1662 ------ 640.5 3/0 -------- 0.4096 ------- 167,800 ------ 0.1318 ------ 507.9 2/0 -------- 0.3648 ------- 133,100 ------ 0.1045 ------ 402.8 1/0 -------- 0.3249 ------- 105,500 ----- 0.08289 ------ 319.5 1 -------- 0.2893 ------- 83,690 ------ 0.06573 ------ 253.5 2 -------- 0.2576 ------- 66,370 ------ 0.05213 ------ 200.9 3 -------- 0.2294 ------- 52,630 ------ 0.04134 ------ 159.3 4 -------- 0.2043 ------- 41,740 ------ 0.03278 ------ 126.4 5 -------- 0.1819 ------- 33,100 ------ 0.02600 ------ 100.2 6 -------- 0.1620 ------- 26,250 ------ 0.02062 ------ 79.46 7 -------- 0.1443 ------- 20,820 ------ 0.01635 ------ 63.02 8 -------- 0.1285 ------- 16,510 ------ 0.01297 ------ 49.97 9 -------- 0.1144 ------- 13,090 ------ 0.01028 ------ 39.63 10 -------- 0.1019 ------- 10,380 ------ 0.008155 ----- 31.43 11 -------- 0.09074 ------- 8,234 ------ 0.006467 ----- 24.92 12 -------- 0.08081 ------- 6,530 ------ 0.005129 ----- 19.77 13 -------- 0.07196 ------- 5,178 ------ 0.004067 ----- 15.68 14 -------- 0.06408 ------- 4,107 ------ 0.003225 ----- 12.43 15 -------- 0.05707 ------- 3,257 ------ 0.002558 ----- 9.858 16 -------- 0.05082 ------- 2,583 ------ 0.002028 ----- 7.818 17 -------- 0.04526 ------- 2,048 ------ 0.001609 ----- 6.200 18 -------- 0.04030 ------- 1,624 ------ 0.001276 ----- 4.917 19 -------- 0.03589 ------- 1,288 ------ 0.001012 ----- 3.899 20 -------- 0.03196 ------- 1,022 ----- 0.0008023 ----- 3.092

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

-------- 0.02846 -------- 0.02535 -------- 0.02257 -------- 0.02010 -------- 0.01790 -------- 0.01594 -------- 0.01420 -------- 0.01264 -------- 0.01126 -------- 0.01003 ------- 0.008928 ------- 0.007950 ------- 0.007080 ------- 0.006305 ------- 0.005615 ------- 0.005000 ------- 0.004453 ------- 0.003965 ------- 0.003531 ------- 0.003145 ------- 0.002800 ------- 0.002494 ------- 0.002221 ------- 0.001978

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810.1 642.5 509.5 404.0 320.4 254.1 201.5 159.8 126.7 100.5 79.70 63.21 50.13 39.75 31.52 25.00 19.83 15.72 12.47 9.888 7.842 6.219 4.932 3.911

----- 0.0006363 ----- 2.452 ----- 0.0005046 ----- 1.945 ----- 0.0004001 ----- 1.542 ----- 0.0003173 ----- 1.233 ----- 0.0002517 ----- 0.9699 ----- 0.0001996 ----- 0.7692 ----- 0.0001583 ----- 0.6100 ----- 0.0001255 ----- 0.4837 ----- 0.00009954 ---- 0.3836 ----- 0.00007894 ---- 0.3042 ----- 0.00006260 ---- 0.2413 ----- 0.00004964 ---- 0.1913 ----- 0.00003937 ---- 0.1517 ----- 0.00003122 ---- 0.1203 ----- 0.00002476 0.09542 ----- 0.00001963 0.07567 ----- 0.00001557 0.06001 ----- 0.00001235 0.04759 ---- 0.000009793 0.03774 ---- 0.000007766 0.02993 ---- 0.000006159 0.02374 ---- 0.000004884 0.01882 ---- 0.000003873 0.01493 ---- 0.000003072 0.01184

For some high-current applications, conductor sizes beyond the practical size limit of round wire are required. In these instances, thick bars of solid metal called busbars are used as conductors. Busbars are usually made of copper or aluminum, and are most often uninsulated. They are physically supported away from whatever framework or structure is holding them by insulator standoff mounts. Although a square or rectangular cross-section is very common for busbar shape, other shapes are used as well. Crosssectional area for busbars is typically rated in terms of circular mils (even for square and rectangular bars!), most likely for the convenience of being able to directly equate busbar size with round wire. REVIEW: Electrons flow through large-diameter wires easier than small-diameter wires, due to the greater cross-sectional area they have in which to move. Rather than measure small wire sizes in inches, the unit of "mil" (1/1000 of an inch) is often employed. The cross-sectional area of a wire can be expressed in terms of square units (square inches or square mils), circular mils, or "gauge" scale. Calculating square-unit wire area for a circular wire involves the circle area formula: Calculating circular-mil wire area for a circular wire is much simpler, due to the fact that the unit of "circular mil" was sized just for this purpose: to eliminate the "pi" and the d/2 (radius) factors in theformula.

 There are (3.1416) square mils for every 4 circular mils. The gauge system of wire sizing is based on whole numbers, larger numbers representing smaller-area wires and vice versa. Wires thicker than 1 gauge are represented by zeros: 0, 00, 000, and 0000 (spoken "single-ought," "doubleought," "triple-ought," and "quadruple-ought." Very large wire sizes are rated in thousands of circular mils (MCM's), typical for busbars and wiresizes beyond 4/0. Busbars are solid bars of copper or aluminum used in high-current circuit construction. Connections made to busbars are usually welded or bolted, and the busbars are often bare (uninsulated), supported away from metal frames through the use of insulating standoffs.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Here's the formula for converting American (or Brown and Sharpe) wire gauge to millimeters: dn = 0.005 mm x 25.4 x 92 36-n/39 With this formula, you can convert a wire gauge size to the diameter of the wire in millimeters. The dn is the diameter of the wire in millimeters, as you might have guessed, and the n in the exponent is the gauge of the wire you wish to find the diameter of. Wikipedia has a fine article on this. They have the formula for converting wire gauge to diameter as well as one for calculating cross-sectional area. They also explain where the formula comes from, if you're interested. The formula for converting from diameter to the wire gauge, the inverse of this formula, is also listed, as is a chart. A link is provided for you convenience. Another link is also provided to an online calculator that will let you just put in a diameter or a wire gauge and will do all the work for you. (Note that this calculator works in inches and not millimeters, so you'll have to make a conversion.) Improved Answer By Sandip Vikma :"Above original formula is difficult to calculate. So, you may use bellow derived formula to convert Gauge into MM". dn = 0.127 x 92
Where, [0.9230769-0.025641026n]

dn = Thickness in MM. n = Thickness in Gauge. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_I_convert_wire_gauge_into_millimeters#ixzz1H2Vu2F6 b

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SWG 7/0 6/0 5/0 4/0 3/0 2/0 1/0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

inches 0.500 0.464 0.432 0.400 0.372 0.348 0.324 0.300 0.276 0.252 0.232 0.212 0.192 0.176 0.160 0.144 0.128 0.116 0.104

mm 12.700 11.786 10.973 10.160 9.449 8.839 8.236 7.620 7.010 6.401 5.893 5.385 4.877 4.470 4.064 3.658 3.251 2.946 2.642

SWG 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

inches 0.092 0.080 0.072 0.064 0.056 0.048 0.040 0.036 0.032 0.028 0.024 0.022 0.020 0.018 0.0164 0.0148 0.0136 0.0124 0.0116

mm 2.337 2.032 1.829 1.626 1.422 1.219 1.016 0.914 0.813 0.711 0.610 0.559 0.508 0.457 0.417 0.376 0.345 0.315 0.295

SWG 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

inches 0.0108 0.0100 0.0092 0.0084 0.0076 0.0068 0.006 0.0052 0.0048 0.0044 0.004 0.0036 0.0032 0.0028 0.0024 0.002 0.0016 0.0012 0.001

mm 0.274 0.254 0.234 0.213 0.193 0.173 0.152 0.132 0.122 0.112 0.102 0.091 0.081 0.071 0.061 0.051 0.041 0.030 0.025

Imperial Standard Wire

Wire types and sizes This worksheet and all related les are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 1.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/, or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. The terms and conditions of this license allow for free copying, distribution, and/or modication of all licensed works by the general public. Resources and methods for learning about these subjects (list a few here, in preparation for your research):

1Questions Question 1 In the Unites States of America, an organization known as the National Fire Protection Association, or NFPA, publishes an important set of standards called the National Electrical Code. What type of information is contained in this set of standards? le 00278 Question 2 Most electrical wire is covered in a rubber or plastic coating called insulation. What is the purpose of having this insulation covering the metal wire? le 00018 Question 3 In the early days of electrical wiring, wires used to be insulated with cotton. This is no longer accepted practice. Explain why. le 00019 Question 4 Describe the dierence between solid and stranded wire types. le 00275 Question 5 Electrical wire is often rated according to its cross-sectional diameter by a gauge scale. Which is the larger-diameter wire size, 14 gauge or 8 gauge? le 00164 Question 6 Suppose you pick up a piece of electrical wire and notice this label printed on the insulation: 14 AWG MTW What does this label tell you about the wire? le 00277 Question 7 What is meant by the ampacity rating of a wire? What criteria establish the ampacity rating of any given wire? le 00276 2Question 8 Examine the following American Wire Gauge table. Please note that most of the oddnumbered gauges have been omitted, because the even-numbered gauges tend to be more common: Gauge # Diameter (inches) Area (circular mils) 4/0 0.4600 211,600 3/0 0.4100 168,100 2/0 0.3650 133,225 1/0 0.3250 105,625 1 0.2890 83,521 2 0.2580 66,564 4 0.2040 41,616 6 0.1620 26,244 8 0.1280 16,384

10 0.1020 10,404 12 0.0810 6,561 14 0.0640 4,096 16 0.0510 2,601 18 0.0400 1,600 20 0.0320 1,024 22 0.0253 640.1 How many gauge numbers must you increase to (approximately) double the diameter of any given wire gauge? What eect does the doubling of diameter have on the cross-sectional area of the wire? le 03380 Question 9 How many gauge American Wire Gauge sizes must you increase to (approximately) double the ampacity of any given wire gauge? le 01956 Question 10 Describe what electrical conduit is, and what applications it is commonly used in. Contrast conduit against raceways and wire trays. le 00281 Question 11 What is a busbar? le 00279 Question 12 The cross-sectional area of wires is often measured in units of circular mils rather than square inches or other common area units. Explain how the circular mil is dened, and how it is calculated for round wires. le 01954 3Question 13 Determine the cross-sectional area of these conductors (viewed from one end), in units of square inches as well as circular mils: 0.25 inches 0.1019 inches 1 in 2 in le 00280 Question 14 Small electrical wires are almost always sized by gauge rather than by circular mils (cmils). So, if you had to calculate the resistance of a length of 22-gauge copper wire and did not have the proper tools to measure the wires diameter, how could you nd the equivalent cross-sectional area in circular mils so as to use the equation R = l

A ? le 01955 Question 15 If an electric drill is plugged into a very long extension cord instead of being plugged directly into a power receptacle, what will happen to the drills performance? Explain your answer, with reference to Ohms Law. le 00386 Question 16 Find a piece of wire or electrical cable and bring it with you to class for discussion. Identify as much information as you can about your conductor prior to discussion: Gauge Ampacity Voltage rating of insulation Temperature rating of insulation Insulation type (plastic, Teon, silicone, etc.) Insulation service (conduit, wireway, direct burial, etc.) le 01154 4Answers Answer 1 The NEC contains standards regarding the installation of electrical power circuits (primarily), but also communications and control circuitry. It is the predominant reference for construction electrical work of all types. Answer 2 The purpose of insulation covering the metal part of an electrical wire is to prevent accidental contact with other conductors of electricity, which might result in an unintentional electric current through those other conductors. Answer 3 Cotton, like many natural bers, is an electrical insulator . . . until it becomes wet! Answer 4 Solid wire is formed from a single strand of metal. Stranded wire is formed from multiple strands, wound together. Answer 5 8 gauge is the larger diameter. Answer 6 This label indicates the gauge of the wire (14 AWG) and the type of insulation (MTW) it has. You didnt think I would just tell you what MTW meant, did you? Answer 7 The ampacity of a wire is its maximum rated current. I wont tell you what criteria establish the

ampacity rating of a wire, but I will say that you will nd the characteristics of the insulation coating a wire has as much to do with a wires ampacity as the physical characteristics of the metal itself ! Answer 8 Wire diameter approximately doubles once for every six wire gauge sizes. Cross-sectional area quadruples for the same wire gauge interval. Answer 9 The rule of thumb here is that a change of three gauge sizes will either double or halve the ampacity, depending on which way the gauge size changes. Answer 10 Conduit is large-diameter metal tubing used as pathways for electrical wires and cables. Answer 11 A busbar is a conductor of unusually large cross-sectional area. Answer 12 The circular mil is dened as the area of a circle with a diameter of 1 1000 inch (a diameter of one mil). 5Answer 13 From left to right: 0.049 in 2 0.008 in 2 2.0 in 2 62,500 cmil 10,384 cmil 2,546,479 cmil Answer 14 This information may be found in a wire gauge table, where gauge numbers and circular mil values are cross-referenced. Answer 15 The drill will not perform with as much power as it would if directly plugged into a power receptacle. Challenge question: draw an equivalent schematic diagram showing the resistance of the extension cord conductors as resistors with the labels Rwire1 and Rwire2. Answer 16 If possible, nd a manufacturers datasheet for your type of wire to discuss with your classmates. 6Notes Notes 1 NEC code books are rather large, so students may feel inclined to limit their answers to what is included in the Answer for this question. However, you should challenge them to look deeper into an NEC book and discover the wealth of information contained therein.

Specically, ask them to describe some of the Article topics typically found in an NEC book. Notes 2 Not only is this question practical from the standpoint of understanding circuit function, but also from the perspective of electrical safety. Why is it important for wires to be insulated? Are overhead power lines insulated like the wires used in classroom projects? Why or why not? How were electrical wires insulated before the advent of modern plastics technology? Notes 3 This question aords the opportunity to discuss electrical safety with regard to clothing (often made of cotton). Does dry clothing oer insulation to electricity like the old-style cotton wire insulation? Can cotton clothing be trusted to insulate you safely from hazardous voltage? Notes 4 A good follow-up question to this would be to ask, What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of solid versus stranded wire? Challenge your students to consider such issues as cost, physical exibility, and ease of connections. Notes 5 For students familiar with shotguns, the methodology of the wire gauge scale makes sense. For just about everyone else, the gauge scale seems backward. Notes 6 It is important that students know where to look for information like this, because they will surely come across unique wire types in their later experience, and will need to know how to identify the wire. Notes 7 Be sure to ask your students what resource(s) proved helpful in researching the answer to this question. Being essentially a safety issue, there are several industry publications on electrical safety regulations that may prove informative. This question connects several important principles together: physical ratings of materials, power dissipation in metallic conductors, and electrical safety. Challenge your students to connect these principles on their own by probing their knowledge with follow-up questions. Notes 8 Wire gauge numbers and diameters for this table were taken from table 2-85 of the American Electricians Handbook (eleventh edition) by Terrell Croft and Wilford Summers. Area in circular mils for each AWG size was calculated from the given diameter. Notes 9 Although this rule is only approximate, it is useful to know!

7Notes 10 If you happen to have pieces of conduit available for demonstration, show them to your students during discussion time. Better yet, take them to a place where they can see electrical conduit in use! Be sure to ask them questions about the other methods (raceways, wire trays) of laying wire, and how these methods compare with rigid conduit. Notes 11 Ask your students to describe possible applications for busbars. Where would they typically encounter such huge conductors of electricity? Notes 12 Explain how this is analogous to the square inch being dened as the area of a square measuring one inch on a side. If you need to approach the denition in smaller conceptual steps, you might want to rst dene what a circular inch is before you dene what a circular mil is. Notes 13 Calculating the cross-sectional area of the 1 2 busbar in units of circular mils may be challenging for some students, because an equation directly relating linear dimensions to circular mil area may not be easy to obtain. However, even in the event that no equation can be found, there is a way to solve for the busbars area in units of circular mils by observing the answers obtained for the other two conductors areas. Notes 14 Show your students a wire gauge table, if their textbooks do not already contain one. Notes 15 Students who have worked with power tools, especially on construction sites where long extension cords are commonly used, will be familiar with this phenomenon. Ask your students what eect dierent gauges of wire in the extension cord would have on this degradation of drill motor performance. Also, ask about dierent lengths of extension cord. What, exactly, is the electrical quantity that varies with these dimensional changes, that causes the drill motor performance to vary? Notes 16 The purpose of this question is to get students to kinesthetically interact with the subject matter. It may seem silly to have students engage in a show and tell exercise, but I have found that activities such as this greatly help some students. For those learners who are kinesthetic in nature, it is a great help to actually touch real components while theyre learning about their function. Of course, this question also provides an excellent opportunity for them to practice interpreting component markings, use a multimeter, access datasheets, etc.

4.3.12 - Harmonic currents and neutral conductors A perfectly balanced three-phase system (one with all three phase loads identical in all respects) has no neutral current and thus has no need of a neutral conductor. This is often so with motors, which are fed through three core cables in most cases. Many three-phase loads are made up of single-phase loads, each connected between one line and neutral. It is not likely in such cases that the loads will be identical, so the neutral will carry the out-of-balance current of the system. The greater the degree of imbalance, the larger the neutral current. Some three-phase four-core cables have a neutral of reduced cross-section on the assumption that there will be some degree of balance. Such a cable must not he used unless the installer is certain that severe out-of-balance conditions will never occur. Similar action must be taken with a three-phase circuit wired in single-core cables. A reduced neutral conductor may only be used where out-of-balance currents will be very small compared to the line currents. A problem is likely to occur in systems which generate significant third harmonic currents. Devices such as discharge lamp ballasts and transformers on low load distort the current waveform. Thus, currents at three times normal frequency (third harmonics) are produced, which do not cancel at the star point of a three-phase system as do normal frequency currents, but add up, so that the neutral carries very heavy third harmonic currents. For this reason, it is important not to reduce the cross-sectional area of a neutral used to feed discharge lamps (including fluorescent lamps). In some cases the neutral current may be considerably larger than the phase currents. Where the load concerned is fed through a multi-core cable, it may be prudent to use five-core (or even six-core) cables, so that two (or three) conductors may be used in parallel for the neutral. In some cases it may be necessary to insert overload protection in a neutral conductor. Such protection must be arranged to open all phase conductors on operation, but not the neutral. This clearly indicates the use of a special circuit breaker. It is very important that the neutral of each circuit is kept quite separate from those of other circuits. Good practice suggests that the separate circuit neutrals should be connected in the same order at the neutral block as the corresponding phase conductors at the fuses or circuit breakers.