- 1). Measure the diameter of the wire with the micrometer. Assume for this example that the wire measures 0.2893 inch in diameter.
- 2). Compute the gauge of the wire from its diameter. The following formula provides a wire's gauge in the AWG system: N = (-39) x log92 (D / 0.005) + 36. N is the gauge of the wire, and D is the diameter of the wire. The wire in this example has a diameter of 0.2893 inch, so the formula would be N = (-39) x log92 (0.2893 / 0.005) + 36. The result of this equation is 1. Wire with a diameter of 0.2893 inch is therefore No. 1 AWG wire.
- 3). Adjust the result in step 2 for negative numbers. The AWG system doesn't have negative gauges, so a result of -1 in step 2 corresponds to a gauge of 00. A result of -2 is a gauge of 000; a result of -3 is a gauge of 0000 and so on.
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