Wire sizes seem odd on light controller

[Alternety]

I am replacing an Insteon relay controller. It is smart and has 8 possible buttons, but only one runs the relay for the load.

The odd thing I see is the wire sizes. There are 3 wires. Hot, neutral, and load (+gnd). Hot and load are a fairly large gauge, #12. But the neutral is very small. Using my wire stripper on the bare wire it appears to be #22.

Now the way the device works is that the high current is only through the red and black (load and hot). The neutral will only have a small amount of current flowing through it. Power for the relay and the controller electronics in the device. So current capacity wise, it should be just fine; no unsafe conditions.
But do codes allow that small neutral? Just curious.

 

[Jadnashua]

My guess, and this is only a guess, is that the device needs neutral, but since it is only switching the hot, those wires need to be 'full' size. In the thing being switched, it would need the neutral that is full size, but to power the device, since powering the relay coil is such a small load, they only use a small gauge wire to save a bit of money. Same thing happens in say a light fixture...say the lamp uses a maximum of 100w bulb...the wiring IN the lamp doesn't need to be very large, but the supply needs to be sized for the breaker it is on.

 

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[Mr. Mint]

From your description, it sounds like you are using a single-pole device and it is not wired to 240 volts. Therefore, what you are calling "neutral" is probably just for grounding purposes and is simply grounding the device's frame. A smaller bare wire is typically used to bleed off any static or induction currents.