Wiring for stepper motors

[der_fisherman]

I am at this time building my own design CNC machine and soon I will need to fabricate the cables for the moving parts. I have a few questions:-
1)What type of flexible wiring do I need to last the longest?
2) What gauge or current carrying capacity? I will be using 3 amp motors, but I would suspect that one should use a much heavier gauge than 3 amps carrying capacity to stop volt drops....would 10 amp wiring be OK or should it be heavier?
3) On manufactured machines, they use those nice plastic chains with the wiring in them, I cannot find a deliverer here in Germany prepared to sell me only 3...300 yes!!!
4) Is there a good home alternative to 3) above? Garden hose or similar?
5) Is there a video anywhere showing some good "homebrewed" alternatives?

I did look at other forums here, but could find nothing that helped me at all in the above area, please guide me if there is already some help available. Thanks in advance.
Der Fisherman - always Friendly!!

(Ever had a piece of Candy called a "Fisherman's Friend"?, Strong tasting eh?? There are many flavours today, but the original flavour is the ONE to try!!)

[irving2008]

you need wire rated at least 50% higher than the maximum current. Ideally you should look for the highest number of strands - the more there are and the finer they are then the more flexible it is... 22AWG, 19/0.15 will give you 8A capacity and is fairly flexible. Look for PVC rather than PTFE insulation as PTFE is fairly rigid. Also consider spiral-formed extending cables.

As an alternate to energy chain consider wiring pole, bringing the wires down from above on a spring loaded support sort of like a fishing pole...

[der_fisherman]

Many thanks for the rapid reply, I will follow your advice as to the wiring and cable types, but I find personally that having the wires hanging over the mechanism sort of looks unprofessional......thats why I am searching for an alternative.
Regards
the Fisherman