Crow Horse

Heck, it doesn't matter what your choice of battery cables is to ascend to the level of idiocy. Just ask any of my ex's and they'll confirm my status as world class idiot. And they probably don't know what battery cables do....

aj2494

I personally just like the headroom that oversizing gives. When it comes to electricity, I have no problem designing a system to be handle way more current than it will ever see. That way I know it'll never fail. Plus, have you ever seen a nicely finished set of large cables? It's a thing of beauty. Soldering the lugs and using heatshrink means those things will never fail. I like that.

And if you guys think this is overbuilt, you should see the stand I built for my reef tank. Over-engineering is a disease.

CCKen

Source for marine battery cable, terminal ends, etc.

http://www.genuinedealz.com/about/


Or

http://www.bestboatwire.com/about/


Check the Voltage Drop Calculator

BlueRidgeMark

I've used BestBoatWire.com. Good stuff.

Crow Horse

One question regarding crimping on the lugs. I'm using a T&B WT115 Stakon crimper and wanted to know if I should crimp only once or crimp 90 degrees apart. It's been so long since I last used it I don't remember. Any thoughts on this?

CCKen

One crimp should all that's required. You may want to solder the connection in addition to the crimp.

GregB58

Just read thru this entire thread. It seems some men's cables are bigger than others. Or maybe I just have a small cable complex.

Orlo

And now the female members can chime in with cable envy......

Crow Horse

I've been reading about the fusible link. I believe the stock one is 10AWG which should remain the same. Fusible links apparently have different characteristics performancewise from fuses be it ANL or Maxi. I know nothing about this so I'd like to toss this out the the XJ think tank. Any thoughts on this? Dare I ask this, but if one were to replace the alt. wire to PDC, increasing it one size would be ok?

CCKen

Refer to the link in post #25.


"Typically, a given harness segment is protected by fusible link that is four gauge numbers smaller. A 14-gauge wire would be protected by an 18-gauge fusible link. A 6-gauge wire would be protected by a 10-gauge link, and so on. Odd number wire gauge sizes like 19, 15, 13 and 11 are counted when sizing a link. The length of a fusible link should not exceed 9"."


Given this, if you are using 4 AWG cable, the fusible link should be 8 AWG. Just my assumption, I'm not an electrical engineer.

Radi

I am. Your assumption is correct. Fuse link wire please, with high temp SXL jacket material. Ordinary insulation will melt, leaving you with a dead short if the bare wire contacts the frame.

For some reason I'm reminded of the guys who spend a hundred bux on oxygen-depleted super monster strand power cables for their home stereo equipment, claiming it provides an..ahem...: "ultra low impedance power source for tight, musical transients".
Ignoring the fact the outlet it's plugged in to is still wired with 12/2 Romex.
Hey, it's your money.

aj2494

Yeah, that debate always got me too. The big advantage to the OFC (oxygen free cable) stuff is that it's all copper. CCA (copper clad aluminum) is the alternative, and as the name implies, doesn't conduct as well. So you can get away with using smaller OFC than CCA and it can sometimes be cheaper as a result. But that's not why audio guys pay more for stereo-specific cable. Cable designed for stereo installs is incredibly flexible due to strand size so it's really easy to run and hide everything. I had to get 1/0 for my system to feed the fuse block because it powers two amps, and that stuff is more flexible than a lot of synthetic ropes that I've used. Really not too expensive at less than $3 a foot, considering that the diameter of the copper itself is over half an inch.

BlueRidgeMark

I am, and this question goes straight to the heart of the idiocy of 1/0 welding cable for automotive use.

Fuses, circuit breakers, and fusible links are there to protect a circuit from over current conditions - a short. The cabling is selected to provide adequate (but only "adequate") current flow without excessive voltage drop, and the fusing (I'll call it all fusing for simplicity) is selected to provide adequate current flow and no more.

If you up the cabling to ridiculous levels, and size the fusible links to match the cable size, you have now created a circuit that is capable of supplying far more current than it was designed for. This is a fire hazard.

What's the solution?

Size the fusing to match the original circuit to maintain the original protection, of course.

Which makes the uber-sized cable pretty silly. Kind of like a truck with an 850 horsepower diesel engine running on Prius tires. (That's why I laugh at you guys.)

Now, this argument does not apply to the starter wiring, right? After all, we don't fuse starter cables. Why not? Well, it would be way too expensive to provide fusing for that level of current. No manufacturer wants to add $150 to the cost of each car, times millions of cars. Instead, we rely on good insulation and good routing to avoid short circuits, and hope it works. (Which it usually does.)

So when you uber-size the starter cables, you also uber-size the magnitude of the over-current (short circuit) problem you can have if you ever have that cable's conductors make contact with a good ground point.

Fires aren't good. Bigger fires are less good.


Yah, except the speaker wiring has nothing to do with the power wiring. (And most outlets are wired with 14/2, unless it's a 20 amp outlet.)

That aside, it's still a silly waste of money, like the uber cabling in the Jeep. They put that expensive wire in a noisy vehicle or ordinary home (which is an acoustic nightmare) and brag about their sound quality!

Of course, most of them play it so loud that you couldn't tell the difference between speakers wired with their expensive oxygen free speaker wire and speakers wired with Romex if you put an oscilloscope on it, much less a noise-hammered and damaged human ear.

It's all about, "Mine's better than yours is!", even if there is no real-world benefit.

CCKen

aj2494

How is oversizing cable "idiocy", especially since I already showed that it's less expensive than the alternative being suggested? I completely disagree on your opinion of fusable links. What do you think adding fusable links is for? You don't add inline fuses to protect components, it's to protect the wiring in case too much current is drawn through it (unless it's an OEM fusable link, which is there for a reason). That's why you have a fuse box, each individual circuit is already protected. This is why you blow fuses, not melt all your wiring when a circuit sees too much current. Not having an inline fuse will cause issues if the wire sees more current than it's rated for, which will not happen with the 1/0 welding cable rated at 350A, and most likely not with 4 AWG either. This is why 5-90 even states on his website that you don't need to fuse when upgrading cables. I'm also confused about your comments on the starter wiring. It's fused on its own, so you're not protecting it by adding a fusable link, you're adding redundancy to the system.

Upgrading your main power cables WILL NOT cause a fire, no matter how large you make the cable. If the current flowing through it is too high and you're actually melting the insulation, you've got way bigger problems on your hands. If the current flowing through the cables is fine for the cable itself but too much for some individual component, the fuse for that component will pop. You're overcomplicating the hell out of this.