| Author |
Message |
doctor al
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 12:25 pm: | |
Ok cable guru's. I guess I need some info. I've got to make cables for my golf cart batteries. I have 8 of them and I will be hooking them for 12v and then, hooking to a 3000 watt coleman inverter.I have 20" 1/0 cables I thought I'd hook to the inverter, but I'm not sure about cable size for the batt connections. I have about 22 foot of 1 ga. beldon batt cable and 18 foot of 2 ga batt cable. Do you think any of this cable is thick enough? Thank you in advance. Al |
RANDY L SANDERS
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 12:42 pm: | |
You can use the 2 ga with no problem. It,s smaller and easier to work with. At work we use 4 ga wich is even smaller and it works fine.
good luck
randy |
Joe Pontremoli
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 1:47 pm: | |
I don't think these cables will be heavy enough. A 3000 watt inverter could draw 250+ amps. The instructions that came with my 2500 watt inverter said to use a least 4/0 wire. I used 4/0 welding cable. Welding uses finer and more wire. It is more flexable than battery cable. The longer distance the inverter is from the batteries the larger the cable needs to be. Use the same size wire for the negative side that you use for the positive side. Good Luck. |
RANDY L SANDERS
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 2:04 pm: | |
You could be right. I only know what we use for our elec carts. however, the inverter will only put out the wattage called for by the batteries, and I,m not sure if that would ever be 3000. beter to be safe than sorry I guess.
randy |
RANDY L SANDERS
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 2:07 pm: | |
I'm sorry. I thought you were charging a colf cart. NEVER MIND MY PREVIOS POST
RANDY SANDERS |
Joe Pontremoli
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 2:31 pm: | |
The batteries output control the max that the inverter can put out. The amount that the inverter puts depends on the ac draw. The 3000 watts is ac power. The inverter will draw about 11amps of dc power from the batteries for every 1 amp of ac power from the output of the inverter. The battery bank needs to be of size to provide this dc power to the inverter. In a perfect world if the ac load on the inverter is 3000 watts the battery would need a min of 275amp hours for the input. Joe |
doctor al
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 2:36 pm: | |
Joe, am I backward's? I thought the lower number was the thicker cable. I know that 00 batt cable is way thicker than the cables I have. Or maybe welding cable is numericaly different. Also, this beldon cable is really fine strand. |
Derek (Derek_l)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 5:12 pm: | |
Doctor Al,
4/0 wire is 0000, thicker than your 00 wire.
The 00 wire you have is 2/0.
This is thicker than 0 AWG wire.
0 AWG is thicker than 12 AWG wire. |
david anderson (Davidanderson)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 5:46 pm: | |
I've got 8 golf carts wired for 12 volt feeding a SW2512 and used all 0000 (4/0) welding cable as recommended by the installation manual. I sent my wiring diagram to Wrico and Dick made the cables up for me. He even used red connectors for the + and black for the -. No mistakes where they go.
Remember, Trace recommends the cable run to be less than 5' from battery bank to inverter for best performance.
David Anderson |
Jerry Liebler
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 6:52 pm: | |
Al,
With 8 6 volt batterys it will be important how you connect them. Ideally the path from the inverter through each pair should be the same length including the jumper between the individual 6 volt batterys. Also ideally all 4 of the 6 volt jumpers should be connected together. These goals will insure that the batterys share the load equally. How do you have them aranged physically? How are you charging them?
Regards
Jerry 4107 1120 |
Tom Caffrey (Pvcces)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 7:15 pm: | |
One other thing, doctor al. The Coleman mod sine wave inverter you have generates a strong flyback effect from the sudden turning on and turning off of the DC input.
The Heart installation makes a point of covering this item and, IIRC, suggests trying to hold the length of the cables between battery and inverter to 18 INCHES.
In any event, the cables are to be twisted around each other and kept as short as possible.
If your inverter has a 6000 watt surge rating, the current through the cables may rise to 600 amps for a very short time. You will also want to install a Class T fuse of around 400 amps in the positive lead.
2 gauge is rated 95 amps or so. 2/0 should be good for about 190 amps and 4/0 around 300 amps.
You are going to have four parallel strings, so you might go with lighter wire bewteen the two batteries making up one of the 12 strings. Then, you could step down one gage at a time as you go from string to string away from the main cable connecting to the inverter.
That would work out like this: connect a 4/0 positive cable from the inverter to the positive post on the first string, a 3/0 to the next string, a 2/0 to the next string and a 1/0 to the last string.
I wouldn't go lighter than 1/0 anywhere, and if you are to get full protection from your fuse, it needs to be matched to your smallest wire.
Connect the cable from the inverter to the negative post of the last string, stepping down in size as you go to the next string, and so forth, until you connect to the first string.
It's a lot of monkey business to get it right and most people just use one size of cable for all the connections. But, it does help to connect the inverter cables to opposite corners of the bank to equalize the charging and discharging on each of the strings.
You will want to keep these connections good and clean; one dirty connection will interfere in giving you full capacity and it could even shut the inverter down.
Good luck on your layout and be sure to double check any of the information I've given here because I am just relying on memory.
Tom Caffrey PD4106-2576
Suncatcher |
doctor al
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 7:15 pm: | |
Jerry, right now they are side by side in two's. Let's see if I said that right... 2 wide, 4 long. The inverter is within 16" of the bank. I have a converter that is also a charger. Worked well on the other batts I was using. We will also be getting solar panels as soon as we sell the rest of the house stuff.
Al |
Jerry Liebler
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 10:25 pm: | |
Al,
Hopefully this'll come out and I understood your arrangment. Unlabled wires are 1/0. Optional but recomended connect the 'X's' together with 2/0. using all 4/0 will give lower losses.
+4/0 to load
|
|_______+(6v)-__x__+(6v)-___
|2/0 |__+(6v)-__x__+(6v)-___|______
|_______+(6v)-__x__+(6v)-____space |2/0
space|__+(6v)-__x__+(6v)-___|______|
___________________________________|-4/0 to load
Regards
Jerry 4107 1120 |