Electrical Cable Sizes

Just grab you meter tape or venier caliper then have the cable in your hands as long as you know how to read the graduation scales you can determine your cable size.

Be specific in your question.

specific question please!

Sever the cable cleanly through. Then you can get at the conductors to measure them.

From that you can calculate the amount of power the cable could have carried if you hadn't just cut it in half.

I dont think you are asking for the actual size of the cable, dont you.? MAybe Sizing of wire in a load or equipment. Correct me if I am wrong.

If you want to figure out the official size of a cable and it does not have it written on the insulation (often true for short lengths) you can measure the diameter with calipers (as suggested before) then look up the actual official cable size in a table giving AWG, MCM kcmil sizes correlated to actual cable conductor diameter. You need to decide if the cable is regular stranded since some of the flex wires are of greater diameter than the standard semi rigid stranded wire.

You can find such a table at

http://www.lugsdirect.com/AWG%20wire%20sizes.htm

Chas Ridley

If you are looking to figure out the size of the wire "AWG"

Then you need to get a tool called "slandered wire gauge"

Many electrical supply stores have is and you may find it off line too.

Remember that you have to measure the bare wire without any insulation!

Here you can find some good info about the tool and how to use it.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/elect/wiregauge.html

MCS Inc

www.mcselectricalinc.com