Why was 16ga "not quite enough"?Quote
sheepdog43
I believe I used 14ga for the bed, 16ga was not quite enough.
The advantage of heavier gauge wire is to lower resistance, preventing voltage drop and the wire acting as a heating element. However if you're only using a few feet of wire, the amount of resistance is pretty minimal. 4 feet of 18ga wire running at 10 amps has a voltage drop of .26 volts. 16ga and 14ga have drops of .16 and .10 volts respectively. The 1.6 watts difference between the using 18 or 14 gauges I doubt you could even measure in a real world application. The advantage of smaller diameter is it us usually more flexible as well as lighter, both of which are advantageous when they are moving around.