At 11:31 AM 7/31/2003, John Lunetta wrote:
>In the beginning of the chapter on the wiring diagrams in my Bentley manual
>It says it uses the AWG American Wiring Gauge standard to identify The size of
>the wiring in the circuits. I understand this as AWG 12,14,16,18,etc. And I
>recognize these numbers. However in The Bentley the first set of wiring
>diagrams
>mostly for the earlier model this holds true. Then without explanation I
>start seeing numbers like 0.5, 1.0 etc. What is that? Is that some European
>standard?

Yes, that's how they do it over yonder (we do the same thing on really big
wires).  The number is the nominal cross-section area in millimeters
squared.  As it happens their common sizes are mostly equivalent to our
odd-numbered gauges...here's a table that goes in the other direction, from
AWG to mm^2 -- obviously 6mm^2 is a bit bigger than 10AWG but not as big as
8AWG:

         OD      OD      area    ~area
AWG     in.     mm      mm2     mm2
30      0.01    0.254   0.051   0.05
28      0.013   0.3302  0.086   0.1
26      0.016   0.4064  0.130   0.15
24      0.02    0.508   0.203   0.2
22      0.025   0.635   0.317   0.3
20      0.032   0.8128  0.519   0.5
18      0.04    1.016   0.811   1
16      0.051   1.2954  1.318   1.5
14      0.064   1.6256  2.075   2
12      0.081   2.0574  3.325   3.5
10      0.102   2.5908  5.272   5
8       0.129   3.2766  8.432   8.5
6       0.162   4.1148  13.298  13
4       0.204   5.1816  21.087  20
3       0.229   5.8166  26.572  25
2       0.258   6.5532  33.728  35
1       0.289   7.3406  42.321  40
0       0.325   8.255   53.521  55
0 0     0.365   9.271   67.506  70
0 0 0   0.41    10.414  85.178  85
0 0 0 0 0.46    11.684  107.219 110

david

--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"