motor wire vs battery wire sizing

Joined
Apr 25, 2014
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Sausalito
doesn't it make sense to use thicker wires for the motor with pwm turning things to more amps than the battery would be putting out?

the motor wires will only ever see current half the time when the motor is powered with three phases, so could go thinner, but I think the high amps the motor phase wires will see especially with a hub motor and high motor amp settings it makes sense to go bigger than the battery wires, no?

but theyre often tiny. my motor's magnet wires are 17 awg and 1.15mm diameter while often i'll see motor leads that are 16awg and 1.29mm diameter...its like adding many more turns on the outside of the motor
 
Yes, it makes sense to have thicker phase wires than battery and many people do this. You are correct that many motors come with rather weedy phase wires and these are often upgraded. The windings are usually much thinner than the phase wires because you can only fit so much copper around the teeth, but it's poor form to compound this by having 3ft of undersized wire connecting them to the controller.
 
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