STC-1000 Wire Gauge Question

[mbbransc]

This occurred to me as I slept last night.

I finished my STC-1000 build yesterday and installed it on buddy's chest freezer for our fermenting chamber. I used some old PC wiring so that I could color code everything; white/black/red/blue so it'd be easy to work on if I ever needed to in the future.

But then I starting thinking about how thin those wires are. I did pull them off the PSU from the PC but they are still really tiny gauge wires. Are there any risks involved with how I've wired it up?

 

[day_trippr]

16-18ga wire to a fridge/freezer compressor is seriously under-sized...

Cheers!

 

[muhteeus]

^^ True. But you may have used some 12-14GA in the PSU.

http://www.cerrowire.com/ampacity-charts

This chart should help you out if you want to purchase wire. You can find the Amperage of the unit on the sticker with the model number. Always go higher.

 

[mbbransc]

What's the risk? Melting the wire? If I had to guess, I'd say it was 20g wire.

 

[501irishred]

Of course it would depend on what current your freezer pulled, but I think it would be safe to say you are under sized and should definitely rewire. The STC will handle up to 10A, so 16ga is plenty and will still fit in the terminal block.

 

[mbbransc]

Thx. I have a ton of romex cable lying around. I'll probably just strip some of that out to rewire while we are waiting on water to boil tonight!

thx all

 

[muhteeus]

What's the risk? Melting the wire? If I had to guess, I'd say it was 20g wire.

This and sometimes damage to the other equipment. Most likely result is tripping a breaker.

 

[zachattack]

In addition to heat/fire concerns, if the wire resistance is high enough to cause a significant voltage drop the compressor will be running at a lower voltage than intended. This can ruin it rather quickly.