just starting, basic question on wire guage

[mtmtntop]

what a great forum. everytime i find one of these it makes me realize how little i know about so many things!

now that i have a solar array harnessed into heating an indoor pool and hydronic floor along with domestic hot water working flawlessly, i want to explore a little more into ha. I plan to have a network of 1 wire sensors reading temperature, sunshine, weather, and some telling me if pumps are running or not. I am at square one with this one wire network but have several controllers running my solar array so i understand alot about how they work. the question, for now is this. i have a whole spool of 18 g 2 wire thermostat wire left from running to all the sensors i already have. can i use this as the mainline that i hook all the 1 wire devices? from what i have read, only 22g is necessary, but i already have this 18 g. I ask this now as it looks like i have alot of other pieces that will have to be hooked to this wire and want to make sure the thickness of the wire won't cause me problems later. thanks. i am sure i'll be back soon with the next batch of questions.

 

[Steve]

Electrically speaking you can always use a larger (lower gauge) wire. But then you have other issues to consider - solid or stranded and the connection type. I like to use this chart when doing calculations involving wire gauge. All that said, 18g wire will typically always be sufficient for low voltage HA type work.