Building my launch controller and need to know what wire is good

Soon I will be building a launch controller and will be using 100 feet of extension cord from the relay pad to the controller. Does it matter what gauge of cord it is? Mostly what I see is 16 gauge at home depot and anything else is very expensive.

Plain 16/3 extension cord should be fine, and I just saw a price at Home depot that is hard to believe...

https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-100-ft-16-3-Extension-Cord-SJTW163100GN/206029144

Yep that is hard to believe. That same wire here in Canada is 40 dollars.

highflyer1968 said:

Soon I will be building a launch controller and will be using 100 feet of extension cord from the relay pad to the controller. Does it matter what gauge of cord it is? Mostly what I see is 16 gauge at home depot and anything else is very expensive.

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If it is a relay pad with the battery out at the pad, you don't need heavy wire from the controller to the pad. What it really comes down to is how many wires do you need between the two locations. Cat5 cable should work fine.

highflyer1968 said:

Soon I will be building a launch controller and will be using 100 feet of extension cord from the relay pad to the controller. Does it matter what gauge of cord it is? Mostly what I see is 16 gauge at home depot and anything else is very expensive.

Click to expand...

Yes 16ga wire is more the fine for a relay ignition system with the battery out at the pad. Most of my relay ignition systems use 16/2 white jacket, stranded copper Lamp cord. Why White Jacket? Because it's easier to see laying on the ground, helps pervent accidental trip hazards.

That said; Whatever cable you decide to use make sure it's stranded copper not solid copper as most cat-5 is. Stranded wire can be rolled and unrolled countless times without problem, Soild wire will fatigue and break over time, sometimes an easy find other times tough to trace. Stranded Copper is your friend if the cable is going to get a lot of flexing, rolling or stuffing into other cramped places.

+1 on the stranded copper. If you do use cat5, I would suggest getting Patch cables like these. A 100ft Cat5 with 24ga stranded wire will run about $15. ShowMeCables.com have lengths to 300 ft.

Thanks for the link. Bulk stranded not a bad price

+1 on the 16ga wire. I've built several 1 and 4-pad launch systems for 4-H and Scouts using 100 ft, 16ga extension cords in non-relay (direct) setups. With a 12 volt car battery driving it, I could routinely get 3-motor clusters on Estes igniters with no problem. It is hard to beat the price on the 16ga extension cords. I make igniter cords from 6ft white or brown extension cords--a male plug, attached to wiring for $1.75 can't be beat for cost/performance.