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AWG stands for American Wire Gauge. This is something interesting that I learned today (at least what the abbreviation means).
In terms of networking it represents the wire diameter of an Ethernet cable or probably any cable. Contrary to expectations, the higher the number the thinner the wire is. There are also a bunch of characteristics related to it that I don't understand.
It has a total of 44 possible values (1-40, plus 0, 00, 000 & 0000) and according the TIA 568-C.2 standard Ethernet patch cables should consist of four balanced twisted-pairs of 22 AWG to 26 AWG (0.64516mm to 0.40386mm) solid or stranded conductors.
I'm wondering if smaller or bigger values are better. Is the signal better, or the tension higher, and what's the importance of characteristics such as:
+-----+------------------+-------+-----------------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Diameter | Area | Resistance | Max Current | Max Freq. |
| AWG |------------------+-------+-----------------------+-------------| for 100% |
| | [in.] | [mm] | [mm²] | [Ω/1000ft] | [Ω/km] | [Amperes] | skin depth |
+-----+--------+---------+-------+------------+----------+-------------+-------------+
| 21 | 0.0285 | 0.7239 | 0.41 | 12.8 | 41.984 | 1.2 | 33 kHz |
| 22 | 0.0254 | 0.64516 | 0.326 | 16.14 | 52.9392 | 0.92 | 42 kHz |
| 23 | 0.0226 | 0.57404 | 0.258 | 20.36 | 66.7808 | 0.729 | 53 kHz |
| 24 | 0.0201 | 0.51054 | 0.205 | 25.67 | 84.1976 | 0.577 | 68 kHz |
| 25 | 0.0179 | 0.45466 | 0.162 | 32.37 | 106.1736 | 0.457 | 85 kHz |
| 26 | 0.0159 | 0.40386 | 0.129 | 40.81 | 133.8568 | 0.361 | 107 kHz |
| 27 | 0.0142 | 0.36068 | 0.102 | 51.47 | 168.8216 | 0.288 | 130 kHz |
+-----+--------+---------+-------+------------+----------+-------------+-------------+
Where I live, I only see cables rated AWG23, AWG24, AWG26, AWG26/7. Not sure what to pick because I have no idea what the differences are.
Is there a right diameter for a specific situation?
Conduit, signal resistance, ohmic resistance (DC), impedance (AC), Power over Ethernet - how are these things related and how do they influence the network and the devices I am using.
Basically, how do I know which AWG is the best?
2To supplement the how-it-works answers below, this is the (highly simplified) practical way to look at it: It's effectively a budget decision. Stranded + maximum AWG gives you the cheapest, most flexible wire. The longer distance, greater bandwidth, more features (PoE) you want to support, the more likely it is you'll need to upgrade to a more expensive cable (smaller AWG number, solid instead of stranded) to meet those requirements. – M-Pixel – 2018-07-21T03:38:34.277
3@robinCTS Wow! You deserve an ASCII layout award for that table cleanup. Bravo!!! – JakeGould – 2018-07-22T05:28:50.423
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@JakeGould Thanks. I found the original source of the table here and used the Tables Generator site as a starting point. None of the online table generators have all the features I want/need, though. I'm planning on whipping up my own Workbook-based table generator. I might eventually set up an online version of it ;-)
– robinCTS – 2018-07-22T05:50:00.800