A questoin about multiple wires.

[duffman]

Hello, I was wondering something about a cable with 3 or 4 wires in it. each insulated. Assume I solderred them all together, and then they again becamse individually insulated as the they went throught the wires. When they were finished traveling the wire, would all the voltage only travel through one wire? If I were to resolder them all together at the other end of the cable, would the wire be just like one big wire? I supposed thats what braided wire is, but in braided wire, the strands are not individually insulated so the charge can travel between each of the strands, so this is not exactly the same.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hello, I was wondering something about a cable with 3 or 4 wires in it. each insulated. Assume I solderred them all together, and then they again becamse individually insulated as the they went throught the wires. When they were finished traveling the wire, would all the voltage only travel through one wire? If I were to resolder them all together at the other end of the cable, would the wire be just like one big wire? I supposed thats what braided wire is, but in braided wire, the strands are not individually insulated so the charge can travel between each of the strands, so this is not exactly the same.

It's a simple case of resistors in parallel, they will share the current based on their individual resistances. As all four wires should have identical resistances (within a fair degree of accuracy) they will each handle their resoective share of the current - in your examples, either 1/3 or 1/4.

It is essentially the same as braided wire.