Quote
cdru
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.
Of course you could be really cunning and use a large gauge wire, but make it hollow so it doesn't weigh much ;)