No, the cables are not going to catch on fire. The main reason for big cables to enable a large dynamic voltage range. The battery is 100% at 12.8V. The inverter low voltage alarm is around 11.1V. That means you got a dynamic voltage range of 1.7V to work with.
If the cable drops 0.5V, then your usable voltage range is only 0.7V. Therefor you want as little as possible cable voltage drop. Let's go with a 5% drop. That means the cable voltage drop is:
Cable drop = 1.7V * 5% = 85 mV
85 mV is the magic number. You want to keep cable voltage drop to less than 85 mV.
We can now calculate the cable resistance and then look up resistance in a wire gauge chart to get the desired wire gauge.
Total wire resistance = 85 mV / 60 A = 1.4 mohm
If total wire length is 10 ft then wire resistance per foot is:
Wire resistance = 1.4 mohm / 10 ft = 0.14 mohm/ft
Go to
this table to get the correct wire gauge.
2 gauge wire has 0.156 ohms per 1000 ft, or 0.15 mohm/ft. That's close enough.
Yes, 6 gauge will work. But if you want to keep the low voltage alarm at a minimum, go with 2 gauge.
