That was a nice refresher course. I deal mostly with marine applications so for me ABYC is the Bible to follow. My wires of choice are Ancor 10-16awg for anything leaving the DC fuse box. For the charging, battery and inverter part of the system I use welding wire. As a rule of thumb, I like to go 1-2 gauges bigger then what is needed as long as the lugs fit onto the appliance. I prefer 12v systems for up to 3kw loads and 48v systems for anything above 3kw. How the RV industry is getting away with their shenanigans is beyond me. At a minimum, I would think insurance companies put pressure on them.
Lookin' forward to this. I'm to the point now, getting close to build time that I need to wait til I have quality, uninterrupted time to absorb the utterings of Mr Yarbrough and take notes. Almost game time. Thanks for what you and Steph do. You da man, Nate! Dan in the mitten
So while at the Lowes in Sherman, TX. I was watch somebody order 2 gauge. There was two types, 1) solid core and 2) copper multi string just like many purchase for running 12v lights in a camper. 1) copper was solid and thick core and very hard to bend. Both had a thick black other protector. I could see it was very hard for the guy to cut it too. Normally I was told they keep it up high out of reach and the had to get a lift to get it down too. Heavy weight spool and made still out of wood. The associate told me that they sell it maybe twice a month and these guys were pros by the shirts they were wearing too. We like the information that you share as a great teaching to all of us. I'm a retired IT guy and reminds me of the days in school.
Nice! Yeah; I've found that farm & ranch supply stores SOMETIMES carry fine stranded battery cable as it's often the same as welding wire (depending on the brand and rating).
Early on in our van build I sized a run to our DC Dometic fridge using only the the distance to the device. We frequently had issues with the fridge cycling constantly and not cooling properly. I then learned from Nate of EXPLORIST Life that with DC circuits, wire sizes need to be calculated with the distance to the device and back to the energy source. I finally ran a new larger wire with total distance using the calculator on this channel and problem solved.
One of my biggest mistakes is I used a 4 gage ground wire in my system that was from a car stereo amp kit. It looked cool and seemed ok until it started melting. Only after the fact did I find it was copper coated aluminum. Scared us a bit and we upgraded to a much larger full copper wire. We have since upgraded all of our wires based on the correct requirements plus a bit extra for potential future upgrades.
Thank you for the video. Great information. The problem with aluminum wire is aluminum oxide is a great insulator. If the terminations are not done properly and an oxidation layer present them it can overheat. What about CCA or Copper plated Aluminum? You still have to upsize, but even still it is way lighter.
Short answer: there are LOADS of other types of wires, but we covered the most common ones and hopefully you can use the information in this video and the rest of this chapter to do your own due diligence on what you need for your own system. We use pure copper and tinned copper in the kits found at shop.explorist.life
My largest wiring mistake, so far, was thinking I had a long enough from my vehicle battery to my DC/DC chargers. You answered it properly, but I did find connectors and I'll heat shrink it. I even measured 3,4, 5 times. Still wasn't enough. D'oh!!!
Your video made me consider my situation. My camper van’s previous owner installed an 2000W inverter powered by house batteries. The inverter outputs to an electrical outlet that the shore power cord can plugs into. He added a switch to disable converter from charging batteries, but he ran a 12/2 romex cable from the inverter to the 120v receptacle. Basically it’s a romex extension cable with a plug on one end and a hardwired connection at the outlet. After watching your video, I assume using romex was not a good idea in a mobile installation. What would you recommend I use to replace the romex connection between the inverter and outlet? Thank you for your great videos.
Some thhn-2 and xhhw-2 wires are rated for 105C for different applications such as MTW. Also NEC 90C free air ampacity ratings are very close to ABYC and ISO ratings 105C. The standard NEC chart has baked in de-rating for multiple wires in conduit.
look out for larger sizes of conductors with a 'CCA" label - that is Copper Clad Aluminum, and should be down rated one AWG size for current carrying capacity. This is often seen as battery jumper cable. Also, an SAE certification is not equivalent to AWG. SAE wire size might be ten percent smaller in cross-sectional area. It will be found as OEM vehicle harnesses. Also, I resemble the ID10T remark! 12:22 I should not be used.
I was thinking of using some telephone wire to rig up some usb sockets on a 12v leasure battery and also use it to go to the wall switches where I am putting 12v 0.7 amp LED main ceiling lights in my off grid cabin.
@EXPLORISTlife it's all I've got lying around and there is loads of it. I'm not an electrician but I've seen a lot as thin wires used around 12v systems. I'm not going to have a fire am I? I will protecting the usb's with the phone line on a 10amp trip switch. And the lights are all on a 5amp inline fuse.
We have kits with the proper wiring available in our store for usb branch circuits: shop.explorist.life/shop/all-products/12v-usb-outlet-branch-circuit-wiring-kit/
It’s far easily to wire a standard household 120v/15a outlet using romex than it is with stranded - plus such outlets are not designed to take stranded.
Hehehe putting in to small of gauge of wire. Thinking about the MONEY. I ALSO have an issue with what kind of circuit breaker to use. Hehehe once I used an audio amplifier circuit breaker with my solar install. Some one pointed it out. It was not a wise decision. Yes I did fix it.
I learned from a knowledgeable associate at Home Depot that solid wiring of the same AWG has more amp carrying capacity than stranded wire of the same AWG. I had to step up to 8AWG stranded for my MultiPlus because of this. 10AWG solid would work but have less flexibility as you mentioned in this video.
Dive into the data sheets for each and cross reference what you find with your needs. Alternatively, we've done all of that for you and put proper wires into kits at shop.explorist.life
What’s your thoughts on a welding cable vs battery cable in the same gauge. I prefer to use welding cables. It’s more flexible then battery cable and is rated for more amperage because the more finer strands you have the more amps the wire can handle for a given size. I also you a lot of silicone wire for my rc charge cables I make.
Is the welding cable rated for use as battery cable? Some of it is, some of it isn't. If it's combo welding/battery cable used as battery cable, that's fine, and some of which is what we sell in our store. If it's welding cable that isn't rated for battery cable use, it should only be used for welding.
Thank you for answering this. I’ve seen all of your videos and the specifics, especially when buying cables online (don’t need a kit) has been hard to dial in especially when it comes to the code compliance, actual diameter, strand count etc. Thank you again
What wire would you recommend using for a boat install, Multiplus II x2 according to Victron, needs to use 4x6 AWG but I can’t find a marine wire 4x6 AWG. Could only find 3x6 AWG. What is your recommendation?
We plan on offering this in 2025-2026 pending our new warehouse, but in the meantime, here's 6/4 tinned wire by-the-foot from a 3rd party dealer: sovrn.co/19tqs7t
Another thing about strand count, DC voltage travels on the outside of the wire strands, so the more strands the higher the current carrying capacity. This is how welding wire with a high strand count can carry so much more power. I love the ID.10T rating joke, we used that one in the Navy all the time for the new guys.......
The biggest wiring mistake that anyone else could do is let Randy, The mobile traveler do anything electrical work to your van or RV. He had a fire in his own RV after rearranging wires and then doing the same thing to other peoples RVs and vans. 😢
That, too, is such a hard justification for me to wrap my head around. If we look at 310.16 of the NEC, which also addresses/accounts for AC circuit conductors, with 90 degree wire (THHN or similar), we have to get up to a 1500 MCM wire size before we are allowed to flow 700A. And for context... 1500MCM is about 760mm^2. 4/0 is 107mm^2. So 1500MCM, which is minimum for 700A AC per the NEC is over 7 times larger than 4/0. 🤯
I'm INCLUDING the four fifths of the world that uses mm for it's wire gauges, and am doing the best I can regarding putting both all conversion in the videos and/or in the video description/pinned comment. But the reality of it is: I live in the US; where we don't use MM^2 wire, so that's always going to take precedence. Also, just yesterday, I had somebody comment on this video and said "I'd love to buy from your store, but I live in Europe, so I'm not going to". So yeah; since mm2 doesn't pay the bills, I can't focus on it. Include it, yes. make it the primary measurement, no.
Even if we didn't cover a specific wire type, I hope the information shared will give you a good jumping off point to determine if your desired wire type is appropriate for your use case. Take what you've learned and apply it!
Thanks, this is a pretty basic starting point, IMO something everyone should consider. Have you seen the recent changes to Australian/NZ electrical code to include RV's? I found some of it on target...
@@EXPLORISTlife thanks... While it may not impact our "laws", it should impact our product selection. I do wonder why they demand Li batteries need to be isolated and externally vented from the living space. I think Canada did/does this.
I Took Two Wires that Were *"Fangling " ( sort of Dangling but More fan Shaped ) ...out of the Underside of the Steering wheel Column and Created a 'Shorrtt ' ( there was a " RrrrrrrTT " Sound ....🤔) and I was Able to make Off with some Rich Dudes~ Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron ! ⚜️🧞🖖😉🧜 Seriously Now Folks - now that Marine application are on Board I will Be A Constant visitor🖖👍🎖️
