Well, I had a good talk with an electrician that I use and he helped me wade through some of the dilemma's I've had. He's not a electronics guy, just a sparky who does house and commercial wiring but his code book pointed us in the direction I think I needed. Turns out a 18AWG wire all by itself in the open air can carry 10A but it's de-rated once it's bundled with a bunch of others. The ratio of decreased carrying capacity depends on how many wires it's run with. But according to our math 18AWG should be fine for what I'm doing. And as it turns out he had a roll of 18/21 sitting in his shop he gave me for $2/ft. It is fire alarm wiring.
And I also got some other goodies in the mail yesterday. Now all I have to do is figure out how it works
