is my AWG holding me back?

im using 14awg for my main battery cable loom.

im drawing around 1500w at 72v.

the cables attached to my old batteries (13Ah lipo) are 10awg.

the cables i attached to my new batteries (20ah lipo) i made are 14awg.

im wondering/worrying if i should of bought thicker cable, and done 10awg in my batteries and loom.
looking at the ratings of 14awg...im just on/under the limit of 1500w

the funny thing is....with the old batteries, it was the 10awg portion of wire attached to the cells that got warmest.
im not sure if this was to do with wire quality....or the fact the thicker wire is acting like a heatsink to the battery as it has a physical connection to the cells.

im looking at another 40-50quid in wire.....and im not sure if i need it as i have plenty of 14awg left.

any ideas?

Parallel two of the 14awg wires instead of buying more and wasting money. I would only keep the 14awg if its nice 200c silicon jacket high strand count. If its garbage buy 12-10awg. The shorter the wire the better off youll be

If you’ve minimized the length of cable and the number of plugs along the way, and it’s not getting warm, then why worry about it? 21A really isn’t that much.

thanks for the advice....

21amps isnt that much but its just on the cusp of being ok for my bikes loom.

the cables generally dont get warm.....although sometimes under acceleration i think i feel them get a little warm through my thighs which are pressed up against them.

i can imagine like most electronics, my bike/controler has current spikes which surpas its rating. so at times the load could be upto 30-40 amps.

Motors can take a lot of inductance without suffering any harm, such as heat or transient voltage spikes. Controllers have capacitors for smoothing the voltage spikes, but the higher the inductance, the more you are constantly punching them in the gut.

The battery to controller wires should be short and fat, the three phase wires must have an "adequate" mass in order to limit heat, but...they can be very long with no harm to the system. Long and thin wires accentuate inductance.

Some people have described inductance as a conductors ability to temporarily store some current in the form of a magnetic field. If you coil a wire up, it accentuates that feature, resulting in a large voltage spike (like the the ignition coil in an older car). You can also twist the pos/neg wires from the battery together so they are forced to be physically close to each other, which results in the two opposing magnetic fields cancelling each other out (I don't know if that would make the wires run warmer, because it's typically not a problem)

thanks for that info aswel..

im less so worried about hurting my equipment.....more so im worried im losing performance/range to this thinner wire.

if its getting warm/hot at points its wasting energy. i can imagine this manifests itself as less torque and more wasted ah from the battery.

how much i am not sure :S

i might just get some 10awg and be done. my future projects will need it aswell.