Manufacturers saving a few cents on wire
Lately I have been looking into getting better battery recharge time performance. When I looked into the cabinet housing the converter charger I found something odd. There are 8 AWG wires about 1 ft l...
Forum Discussion
wolfe10 wrote:
Tell us what amp converter you have. With that, the length of the wire run (positive + negative) AND (an important AND) using a 3% voltage drop chart you can get the answer very quickly.
https://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Marine-Wire-Size-And-Ampacity
At 12V, 3% drop is WAY too much loss, period.
Folks need to stop propagating this bad information, those charts simply cannot be applied to 12V, they are designed for 120V AND HIGHER where 3% IS NOTHING TO LOSE!
Example, 14.4V at your converter results in .432V drop at 3% so now your batteries are only seeing 13.968V which is nothing more than a trickle charge!
Using 3% chart WILL result in disappointing results.
Nope, you NEED to be shooting way below 1% which in my eyes results in an unacceptable loss of .144V at 14.4V which your batteries will only see 14.256V..
I used 1/0 and have less than 6ft for both pos and negative between my converter and batteries..
Go BIG or don't bother, otherwise your converter is nothing more than a trickle charger after the wire eats up all of your voltage in heat loss.
On edit..
Found an online voltage calculator which WILL show you real results, much better than a chart..
Plug in 14.4V and you can change the current and wire size along with length..
HERE
