ICOM A200 power and ground wiring

The wiring instructions for the ICOM A200 show four connections for ground wires and two for power wires, all called out as AWG 18.

I am wondering if I can connect all four ground wires that come out of the connecter together, then to an AWG 18 wire which would then run to the ground point. Also connecting the two AWG 18 power wires that go into the connector to an AWG 18 wire which would run to ground?

Surely ICOM does not intend for me to connect all six wires separately from the radio to the power and ground connections.

I think the radio uses 2.6 amps while transmitting.

Can anyone help. I suspect that many here have dealt with this problem and can tell me how you worked it out.

Thanks

Hello Tony, they use two wires so that the load is split in half on each 18awg wire. If you want to use a single wire, you will need to double the wire size. Sorry I didn't have a wire chart here with me to give you the correct size.

An 18 Ga wire carrying a continuous 10 amps can be be 8 feet long.

Keep in mind that the radio likely uses about 1/4 amp for normal receive operation.

If you use the intermittant flow chart in 43-13 for 5 amps (twice what the radio uses during transmit) that same 18 ga wire could be 30 feet long.

In reality you could use a 22 ga wire 12 feet long using the intermittent flow chart for 5 a amp load.

Or for 3 amp intermittent load that same 22 ga wire can be 20 feet long.

Bottom line, I don't care what their "installation instructions" say, a single 18 Ga wire is way overkill unless you're installing it in a 757.

Thanks

Thanks Walt and Jamie,

It seemed to me that AWG 18 for less than 5 feet was indeed overkill for a radio that uses 2.6 watts at most.

I just wondered if there was something I was missing. I wonder what ICOM was thinking?

I intend to connect all four ground wires to one AWG 18 and run that to ground.....and connect the two power wires to one AWG 18 and run it to the fuseblock.

I appreciate your help.

One exception would be if one of these grounds is marked as "audio low" or "audio common" or something like that. If so, best practice is to connect that pin to the similarly labeled pin (or ground, if nothing else) on the audio panel.

grounds

Bob,

Thanks for that info. Actually, the four lAWG 18 grounds are all power grounds.

There are other signal grounds that are smaller wires.