I agree with Jerry about SAE vs AWG wire sizing. Adding crimp terminals are a good way to proceed assuming that you have a proper full cycle crimping tool for the lug you are using. Do not consider soldering the lug! Another approach to be used is the substitution of the household wiring devices with 'specification' grade devices, which have a clamp bar under the screw that is approved for both solid and stranded wire.
>
>
> > Going the other way - using marine tin plated stranded copper wire - seems a much wiser choice to me than that failure prone aluminum stuff. With
> > the marine wire you can down size one wire gauge to carry the same amps if you want to and the connectors will be much less prone to corrosion and
> > failure over time. The labor involved in changing wire is much greater than the cost of the wire itself so I would think you only want to do it
> > once.
> >
> > Jerry Work
>
> Jerry,
>
> I don't know where you got this information, but it has big issues. Marine wire is still the same amount of copper as AWG specified wire. While USCG
> requires a higher temperature insulation than most common NEC specification, only allows a slightly higher ampacity. It is seldom enough to make any
> difference. (This is from a guy that worked as a ship's electrician, both onboard and in yards, and did work that was inspected buy USCG and ABS.)
> Could you down size from CCA, sure, but only if you have it in mind to use CCA anyway, and that is a real bad choice in my educated opinion.
>
> Ampacity is really only an issue with high voltage (like ~120VAC) stuff. It works there and there only. For normal applications, you will find that
> 14AWG is good for 15A, 12AWG is good for 20A and 10 is good for 30A. In actual fact, by NEC code they are all capable of greater. Now, when it comes
> to marine, using the stranded equivalent to to an NM X-G will put you into a triplex cable (with the same conductor colors, but the ground is green
> and not bare.) A big no-no is trying to use household grade wiring devices. These are not acceptable for marine stranded wire. You can either go
> and buy these as marine ($$$) or use what amount to residential grade switches and outlets and make all the connections with properly crimped
> terminals. That will pass an inspection.
>
> Now, when it comes to 12 or even 24 V (nominal) systems, the tables that you find for 2% or 10% voltage drop are garbage (IMNSO). First off, those
> tables are all for one direction only, so they are already wrong by a factor of two as most people read them. Then come the fact that many devices
> are very sensitive to supply voltage. A 2% drop, if it is calculated correctly, is 0.24V. Yes, that is about 1/4 of a volt. That may not sound like
> much, but in some cases it can be a real headache. There is another little snake that people miss all the time. SAE spec wire is as much as 10% less
> copper than AWG. So that #10 cable in our coach may not smoke at 30 amps, but it is really closer to #9AWG and will provide the associate voltage
> drop. This is really a joy when trying (in a newer 26) to recover the house bank from the main engine alternator.
>
> Before the most recent depression, I made a living making owner's older racing boats into performance cruisers. I always quoted the work as labor
> plus copper. This so they would understand that about a quarter of the job cost was the copper that would still be there when I was done. I would
> steadily remind them that they only had to buy the copper once.
>
> Well that is enough of this stuff for an evening and after a full road day.
>
> Matt - Holding up at the north Georgia Welcome Center. Tomorrow is Florida - Too late to register.
> --
> Matt & Mary Colie - '73 Glacier 23 - Members GMCMI, GMCGL, GMCES
> Electronically Controlled Quiet Engine Cooling Fan
> OE Rear Drum Brakes with Applied Control Arms
> SE Michigan - Twixt A2 and Detroit
>
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