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
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.
You've gone to the other extreme and it just adds to the confusion. Voltage drop is a product of wire resistance (it's gauge), wire length, and how much current you try and push though it. Your size is great if you want to charge at 100amps/hour. For the rest of us a 10amp/hour rate is more than adequate when plugged into shore power overnight. Just for the record any charging voltage over 13.5 will charge the battery.
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.
You've gone to the other extreme and it just adds to the confusion. Voltage drop is a product of wire resistance (it's gauge), wire length, and how much current you try and push though it. Your size is great if you want to charge at 100amps/hour. For the rest of us a 10amp/hour rate is more than adequate when plugged into shore power overnight. Just for the record any charging voltage over 13.5 will charge the battery.
