Ampacity of brass/thickness of brass wire needed

[seanspotatobusiness]

I have a couple of LED lighting projects using brass candelabras as their base. I want to use brass wire which I will enamel using polyurethane but I need to determine with minimum width of brass wire to use. One lamp will carry up to two amps on a single wire and the other, if it goes ahead, would be about 12 amps per wire. If it helps, I could determine the resistance of a length of some brass wires. At the moment I only have 0.7 mm diameter.

 

[duke37]

Why brass? The colour will be determined by the insulation.

Look up the resistance of the brass and get the area of the wire to be in proportion to copper wire for the current you want.

The current limit is dependant on the voltage drop and on the heat produced. A bit more information would help.

 

[Bluejets]

Strange request.
However, here is a table, (didn't take much to find on Google)
You will see copper is 4 times approx better conductivity than brass.
Resistivity is 8 times .

http://www.tibtech.com/conductivity.php

 

[duke37]

According to my calculator the ratios are 3.7:1

Wires can be obtained with various coloured insulation.

 

[seanspotatobusiness]

One project I'm planning will need a very high current so I'll need to use copper wire. Is there any reason I couldn't use this antique brass coloured copper craft wire and enamel it with appropriate varnish?

 

[duke37]

If the wire is pure copper, it will have the same resistance as other copper wire but is more expensive than enamelled magnet wire.

If the current is very high, the temperature can be high and will burn the varnish off. Just get wire which is thick enough to take the current and will have an acceptable voltage drop. Multiple wires can be used.

 

[seanspotatobusiness]

Thanks!