Technical and General Product Information

Many people ask what wire thickness they should buy - please see this general guide which is by no means exhaustive but is provided to help and kept brief for your convenience.

There are various ways of expressing a wire thickness or weight around the world. In Europe we generally express it as square millimeters of the cross-sectional area of the conducter. Another common system is AWG (American Wire Gauge) - in this system the numbers get smaller as the wire gets heavier and vice versa. Raychem wire is usually sold under the AWG system. There isn't always a direct match between the AWG and the square millimeters sizes but we have shown closest matches in the guide.

The automotive standard thin wall PVC insulated wire is what our main wire range consists of. We also have specialist wires such as screened cables, coiled cables etc. We don't stock rubber insulated cables at Simtek but we can obtain them by the roll on special order.

This guide is intended as a general guide only and it is the responsibility of the user to check if the guide is appropriate and correct for their specific application.

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Wiring Help For Customers (351kb)