What determines battery cable size?

tenbear wrote:
If you have a generator you may want larger wire than #4. I have a 3000 watt generator and it can draw 80 Amps to start. The OEM used #2 wire for the battery connections.

My generators are portable and I use my son's to do the starting.

Sam Spade wrote:

johnm1 wrote:

I don't expect the truck to recharge the batteries unless it's a long day's driving and I don't even know what voltage the dual alt configuration of the 2013 GMC Duramax puts out.

To repeat:

What do you expect to GAIN by making these changes ?

Seems to me like it's impossible to answer that since you state that you don't really know what your starting point(s) are.

If you spend a ton of time and money in making "improvements", how will you know if you have really accomplished anything useful or not ???

What I expect (hope) to gain is more efficient charging from my portable generator(s). To me, efficient means faster charging and having to run them less often. It's less of a hassle and I suppose a bit of a cost savings on fuel, etc. I don't much care about the cost of upgrading the wire. It'll be an incremental cost. I'm going to replace it. So, 4 awg costs me $1.22/ft and 2 awg costs $1.54/ft. That'd be a "piddly" $16 more. BTW, 1 awg is only $2.22/ft. If I spend a little bit more to begin with, I might be able to enjoy my camping time a little bit more. That's what I'm looking for.