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Wire resistance calculator
By richhagen, Section Homebrewed Electricity Posted on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 01:23:26 AM MST
Wrote a visual basic program for calculating resistance, length or wire size if two are known.

Hello, I wrote a wire resistance calculator in visual basic and thought it might be of use to some of the folks here. I figure it could be useful for estimating resistance in power transmission cables as well as alternator coils. It is freeware, and at 40Kb it is smaller than most of the photos here. It should run OK on Windows XP, 2000, and also 98 and 95 if vbrun files are present. However, if you decide to play with it, you do so soley at your own risk. Feedback and ideas will be appreciated. The file allows you to calculate the third variable if you know two of the following:
wire size (American Wire Guage or circular mils)
wire length (feet, inches, meters, kilometers, miles)
resistance (Ohms)
It is pre-pre-beta, (I wrote it yesterday) I plan to add menu bars as well as other types of wire size measurements for our friends in Europe. I also plan to tweek the accuracy a bit for the American Wire Guages. It's kind of an art using a formula from this to square millimeters or back to do the calculations for resistance and length apparently AWG has been adjusted many times. If you have a site and wouldn't mind posting it for folks to download, drop me a line at Richhagen-at-Juno.com (replace the -at- with the @ symbol). I have it in the photo's section at:
http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/742/WIRECALC.exe
I do not plan to leave it there for long without the Dan's express permission as it is not a photo and I don't want to wear out my welcome here. It is however smaller than most photos that would get served with a typical thread. Keep having fun, Rich Hagen

Wire resistance calculator | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by baggo (baggo@copperstream.co.uk) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 01:55:07 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.baggo.copperstream.co.uk

Hi Rich,

Just downloaded it and it works ok with Win 98. Only problem I see is that the dark blue background around the data boxes makes the black writing very hard to read.

John

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 01:58:17 AM MST
(User Info)

I'll fix that, the color is set to the systems title bar colors and black text, depending on how that is set, it could make it hard to read. As soon as I fix that I'll replace the file with the new one. Rich Hagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 02:41:47 AM MST
(User Info)

OK, I Changed the color thing to a light blue, it may be a little harsh on some systems, but should be readable. I added square millimeters to the wire size options, and will add metric sizes and also British SWG sizes if I can find or devise a formula for converting them to some type of cross sectional area. Rich Hagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by baggo (baggo@copperstream.co.uk) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 03:21:02 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.baggo.copperstream.co.uk

That's much better!

John

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by Peppyy on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 05:08:32 AM MST
(User Info)

Sounds like a really handy program. If you are looking to convert almost any units area, volume, density weight etc. I have found this free program does it all.
You can find the finished version here.
http://www.gregorybraun.com/uConvert.html
Hope this helps.
Pep

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 10:22:42 AM MST
(User Info)

checked it out, it seems there are many units of measuring for length, volume, weight ect. that I didn't even know existed. Rich Hagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by wooferhound (tim((NoSpamAt))wooferhound.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 07:36:19 AM MST
(User Info) http://wooferhound.com

Why don't you include voltage loss into your program ?
Here is a bunch of "Voltage Drop Calculators . . .

http://www.electrician.com/vd_calculator.html

http://www.stanselectric.com/vdrop.html

http://www.elec-saver.com/freetool06.htm

)}=- W o o f -={(

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 10:07:12 AM MST
(User Info)

I havn't gotten around to it yet. should be simple to add, since I've already got the resistance calculated. Rich Hagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by windstuffnow (elenz(at)windstuffnow(dot)com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 12:58:17 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.windstuffnow.com/main

Works good as far as I can see... The voltage drop would be nice, also, I noticed you didn't include any of the "0" wires ( i.e. 0, 00, 000 etc).

Great work! Which version of VB is it? I used to use VB5 but haven't had time to play with it reciently so my skills have dwindled somewhat...

Have Fun
Windstuff Ed

Have Fun! Windstuff Ed

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 03:24:24 PM MST
(User Info)

Ed, They should show up as 1/0, 2/0, 3/0, and 4/0. I'll add the code so that they can be entered as 0,00,000 and 0000 as well. For calculating the guage, I rounded mostly up to a whole 'ought'. I'll get to work on the voltage drop part and post it when it is done. Richhagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 03:41:00 PM MST
(User Info)

Forgot to answer the other question, its VB6. My skills arn't that great with it yet, but if I tinker with it long enough, I can usually get it to do what I want. The 'ought' correction should be posted by the time you read this, just re-download it. Still have to do the voltage drop, rounding, and add more types of units. Rich Hagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Nov 27th, 2004 at 03:42:06 PM MST
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Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by srnoth on Sun Nov 28th, 2004 at 05:49:43 PM MST
(User Info)

Great program. Would be really cool if you added voltage drop under load. Wooferhound posted some links to voltage drop calculators, but I could not find one for 12v. It should be fairly simple to add that to your program.

Good luck,
Keep up the good work,
Cheers,
Stephen.

Re: Wire resistance calculator (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Mon Nov 29th, 2004 at 04:02:08 PM MST
(User Info)

I am working on the voltage drop calculator portion. The voltage drop is actually a function of the amps passing through the wire. One amp at 48 volts will drop the same number of volts as one amp at 12 volts provided of course that the voltage drop is less than 12 volts. (if its greater, you couldn't push an amp through the wire at 12 volts even if you shorted the leads at the other end) Rich Hagen
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Wire resistance calculator | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 editorial)

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