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Aircraft wire needs?

Davea320

Well Known Member
Need to start wiring up the wings and fuse. Panel is being built for me, so what I need to do myself is wire up the wingtip LEDs, autopilot and trim servos, taillight and any other items that need electrons. My dilemma is what type of wire to order, colors and lengths to finish things up and not have to stop work to order more or different type of wire. Looking for what has worked for you as well as what you may have determined you would do differently.

Thanks for all and any advice including preferred vendors.

Dave
 
Some thumb rules:
- Less than 5 amps, use #20 wire
- 5-10 amps use #18
- Old school landing lights and such, #16 or #14
- LED landing lights, #18 wire (most cases)
- Pitot Heat, #16 or #14 (depending on length of wire run)
- LED NAV/Strobes, three #20 conductor shield wire (nav power, strobe power, strobe sync and shield as common ground).
- Headphones and such, three or four #22 conductor shielded wire
- Remote mounted Dynon ADS-b receiver, four #22 conductor shielded wire
- ELT, four #22 conductor shielded wire
- Dynon Skyview roll and pitch servos, one four conductor #22 shielded wire, one #20 wire for power, one #20 wire for ground, one #22 wire for AP disconnect.

Other runs dependent on your EFIS choice.

Coax to run to each antenna.

I buy this wire from Stein. I get US made welding cable from eBay. Don’t forget all the wire connectors - also from Stein or Allied Electronics.

Carl
 
Wiring

I bought the wiring kit from Vans for the basic wires.
I bought all the wiring kits from Dynon for servos, network, EMS etc. This gives consistent color coding and the right lengths.
Added to this a 50m roll each of Tefzel 20 AWG and 22 AWG for hookup. Purchased from rsonline.
Some shielded 22 AWG two core for the headset jacks from Spruce. They are not the cheapest but.shipping is easier.
Connectors and switches are from digikey mostly.
This for a simple day VFR plane with Flyleds wig-wags.
 
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