Migration of electrons have to exceed 740MHz to start migrating to the outer circumference of the conductor (depends on the conductor structure).  So your USB or interface cabling should account for signal attenuation or at least understand for the 15’ USB3 what is the specification!!!  Cannot go cheap on these – and ensure that they are well shielded, aluminum paper wrap is not shielding.

For the sake of our equipment – The mount will impart the largest di/dt.

Taking into account the data collected based on the loading (load and Fulcrum (lever) – you can ascertain at some maximum skew rate and the amount of current sinked  to mitigate violating the minimum voltage which can damage the instrument or throw off the accuracy.

That is the goal I would assume – taking into account the various loads from other devices; cameras, conversion factors, USB controllers and communication devices all have voltage limits.

If you exceed that minimum voltage in any of these devices you can expect inoperability. 

So understanding your power consumption and your input voltage vs. full load is the key goal I would suspect.

Minimalist path – use the thickest gauge with the highest strand count.  Source a silicon based insulator (varmints for some reason will not eat) and ensure that you contacts are sealed from moisture.  Sealed connects are important.  From your power distribution panel to the equipment. 

Purchase the best interface cables you can afford – after spending that $8K on that camera only to use dollar store USB – you would induce all that noise from the transition out of the camera to your storage device.  Does not make sense when you looking for that ultra low noise.

Cover unused connectors – at some point you might need them and if they are corroded it will impact the capability for the physical connection.  Some use RTV or clear silicon caulking.

And some wire on Amazon and similar places is aluminum and as a rough estimate assume you need a full size increase (for AWG 18 copper use AWG 16 Aluminum, where “size” is 2 numbers, for reasons lost in NEC past).

Copper Clad aluminum (CCA) is even more widely sold, it looks like copper, it is very slightly better than pure aluminum, but is still aluminum.  It’s often really hard on Amazon to tell if something is CCA or copper (on purpose as CCA is much cheaper).

Copper is still the gold standard.   CCA and Aluminum exist to be cheap, really.

Remember current flows through the wire – so wire that has a lot of small strands will have a lower IR drop.

So not all 14AWG has the same current handling capability – they can differ by quite a bit.

Vendors usually have online calculators for their products.

Also important is the insulation rating

Regards,

Jack ~

Howdy,

The through mount power cable inside the Mach 2 is a 24” 16 AWG cable.

Liam