Tilt/Trim wiring size

[Cubman]

I am putting a trim switch on the end of my OMC tiller handle to operate the factory tilt/trim. The wire will have to run beside the throttle cable in a small gap, so I need to use the smallest wire possible. The overall run will be about four foot in length.

What is the smallest gauge wire I can use for this application without concerns of reliability?

Thanks

 

[kofkorn]

The trim switch uses a very small current to switch a set of relays. As long as you are not directly driving the motor, you can use a very small wire, 20-22 ga or so. The relays only draw about 100mA, and that can be handled by nearly any kind of wire that you would think to use.

For simplicity sake, you could look into cutting the ends off of a USB cord. It's not marine rated, so you may want to keep a close eye on it, but the ease of running one bundled cable is much better than trying to run three separate wires. USB cords are rated for at least 500mA, so you will have no issue with overloading it. They are nice and flexible too, so no issues with extending and retracting your throttle either.

Now if someone monkeyed with your trim system, and there aren't any relays involved, then ignore the above and don't use anything less than 14ga marine rated wire.

Good luck!

 

[Charger25]

Yep, what kofkorn said! =D>

 

[Cubman]

Kofkorn, thank you for the information.