gbopp wrote:
Check The 12 Volt Side of Life, part 2, near the bottom there is a list of wire for amps/length.
Hope this helps.
Thanks! That's excellent information.
westend wrote:
Basically, the interconnecting cable in the series pairs should be at least as large as the outgoing power leads. There is nothing wrong with having larger cable connecting the pairs but you should never have it smaller than the power leads. The same is true for the parallel connection cable.
If you are using a larger inverter, you should have larger cable that is rated for the amperage load of the inverter draw. Be sure to use a fuse or circuit breaker for circuit protection of the power leads. I like to use a large amperage catastrophic fuse attached to the positive battery terminal for that protection. I am basically protecting the cable in the event of a short.
Genuine deals.com is used by some Forum members for constructing and supplying cables. There have been favorable reviews of that company.
So I checked the cables that are currently attached to my battery and they are 6 gauge. So I'm thinking that 4 gauge would be fine for connecting both the series and parallel batteries? Perhaps something like
this? (Not those exactly, I'll try to find something similar from a local auto parts store.)
Regarding the inverter, I did buy a Go Power! GP-SW1500-12 1500-Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter to charge our computers and other miscellaneous appliances. I'll fire up the generator if we need to run our convection oven. However, I don't know enough about the electrical systems to trust myself to wire the inverter, so I paid what I'm sure is a very overpriced amount to get the Go Power! GP-DC-KIT3 DC Installation Kit for 1100-1800-Watt / 2000-3000-Watt. That comes with 2.0 gauge cables and a 200 amp fuse. It looks straight forward enough to hook up.
Right now I don't have the money, time, or energy to install anything fancy like an inline inverter that automatically switches between shore and battery power, or anything like that. With the 1500 watt go power you just plug your shore power directly into the inverter, and I'm fine with that. We're heading to Alaska and plan to do a lot of boondocking, but we'll be staying in each place for 1-2 weeks at a time so having a more manual system is fine.
