I haven’t seen this question asked since 2012, so I thought it would be worth another inquiry. I have personally found inserting 18 AWG wire into Dupont housings to be quite difficult and 16 AWG to be nearly impossible because of the insulation thickness; I don’t know if that’s the nuances of the sizes or a consequence of our team lacking members with prior experience in electronics. Looking at the rules, I’m not sure exactly where the RSL fits into Table 9-4. Would 20 or 22 AWG be FRC legal? My current guess is that the RSL counts as a “SIGNAL LEVEL” circuit.
I’m going to go with “keep reading”. This one took me a bit.
R709 covers wiring the RSL, and its blue box links to How to Wire an FRC Robot — FIRST Robotics Competition documentation. Which, if you scroll down, says to use 18 AWG. Drat.
Table 9-4, Signal Level circuitry: “(i.e. circuits which draw ≤1A continuous and have a source incapable of delivering >1A, including but not limited to roboRIO non-PWM outputs,”, 28 AWG minimum.
Hmm… and the spec sheet for the RSL says it’s a 12VDC 60mA continuous draw.
Of course, 28 AWG being the minimum you could always bump up to say it’s on a <=10A Fuse protected circuit (which it is, RoboRIO uses 10A) and that’ll give you 22AWG.
So, long story short: 22AWG gives you two rules you’re safe under, anything smaller leaves you with 1. 20 AWG is just extra safety compared to 22 AWG.
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There is no wire size limit in the robot rules for RSL. The connector on the Roborio is the same spacing as the PWM connectors but it is a two pin connector. It is easy to modify a premade PWM connector to wire the RSL. The connector at the RSL is meant for #18 or smaller so #22 is perfectly fine.
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We wired ours today with what is most likely 22 AWG (it’s a red/black cable with 0.1" spacing ends on it, that came in the REV cable kit) . Just like we’ve done for years.
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