I'll check the shops tomorrow till then I found this http://greatlakesskipper.com/produc...10-foot-4-inch-yellow-boat-battery-cable.html a good baseline on price?
That is probably thick strand wire and not really long enough I wouldn't think. I know at the stereo shop I deal with the big wire (fine strand) is between 6 and 8 dollars a foot. I am not sure if it is 0 or 2/0 but the copper is as big around as my thumb.
I used a battery cable from some 90's Eurotrash car.. I think it was either a BMW or Mercedes... Super thick wire and it was the perfect length for my 4 door... Should fit even better on a 2 door.
2 AWG wire is 2 AWG wire, the ampacity rating or the expected voltage drop does not change due to the number of conductor strands. There is not a greater cross sectional area of conductors, just more, smaller conductors with more empty spaces between them. Not trying to be a d1ck about this, just don't want anyone to think they can overload a certain size cable just because it has more conductor strands. Saw someone do that when they installed a high output alternator once, it wasn't pretty.
I mounted mine on the driverside shelf...then ran the cable to the disconnect switch, over the hump on pass. side to the starter. this way i could keep my spare tire. I tried it in the middle, under the back shelf but it would be too hard to get in and out if need to.
I would never suggest that someone use a smaller gauge wire to save a buck or because it's easier to obtain, in fact I suggest just the opposite. The bigger the wire, (the smaller the ga #, for those who don't know) the better I say. Use the biggest wire you can, it can't hurt. Routing in a car is why I prefer the finer stranding, not conductivity. I think we got off on a tangent on that subject considering the point I was trying to make. The physical size of the wire is what determines voltage drop with high current loads, (starter motor, alternator, etc) and using one that is too small can cause serious issues from slow starter speed to a fire in a worst case scenario. Some of the cheaper battery relocation kits use a very hard coating on a coarse strand wire that in a lot of cases is only 4ga. For the record, I did edit the size issue, a 2ga is 2ga, the physical size appears different depending on stranding which when picking a wire, you could mistake a 2ga for a 1ga if you tried to eyeball it if the wire is not marked. Some of the chinese cable I have seen of late is not marked and very coarse and hard to bend and if you look at it beside a stereo cable of the same size, it looks a lot smaller(insulation adds to that of course). Apologies for the inaccuracies, AWG is larger in physical size than a solid conductor of the same gauge and that is what I was referring to in my original statement. I used a 2ga because that is what I had at the time and I haven't had any problems as of yet and vDrop is less than .5volts from bat pos to the starter post. ...with that said, my thoughts on battery cables is use the largest (smallest number) cable you can route, crimp, solder, with 1ga being the smallest I would use in a trunk mounted battery location and use the same size ground as power feed cable. With a 130a alternator, use at least a 4ga power wire to prevent excessive voltage drop. JMHO Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.
This is a pretty good write up on the benefits of stranded vs. solid wire.Understand that in a battery cable, you are using direct current, thus the frequency is zero. " At high frequencies, current travels near the surface of the wire because of the skin effect, resulting in increased power loss in the wire. Stranded wire might seem to reduce this effect, since the total surface area of the strands is greater than the surface area of the equivalent solid wire, but in fact a simple stranded wire will not improve skin effect since all the strands are short-circuited together and still behave as a single conductor. A stranded wire will have higher resistance than a solid wire of the same diameter because the cross-section of the stranded wire is not all copper, there are unavoidable gaps between the strands (this is the circle packing problem for circles within a circle). A stranded wire with the same cross-section of conductor as a solid wire is said to have the same equivalent gauge and is always a larger diameter. However, for many high-frequency applications, proximity effect is more severe than skin effect, and in some limited cases, simple stranded wire can reduce proximity effect. For better performance at high frequencies, litz wire, which has the individual strands insulated and twisted in special patterns, may be used. [edit] Number of strands The more individual wire strands in a wire bundle, the more flexible, kink-resistant, break-resistant, and stronger the wire is. But more strands cost more. The lowest number of strands is 7: one in the middle, 6 surrounding it. The next level up is 19, which is another layer of 12 strands on top of the 7. After that the number varies, but 37 and 49 are common, then in the 70 to 100 range (the number is no longer exact). Even larger numbers than that are typically found only in very large wires. For application where the wire moves, 19 is the lowest that should be used (7 should only be used in applications where the wire is placed and then doesn't move), and 49 is much better. For applications with constant repeated movement, such as assembly robots, and headphone wires, 70 to 100 is mandatory. For applications that need even more flexibility (welding is the usual example, but also any need to move wire in tight areas), even more strands are used. One example is a 2/0 wire made from 5,292 strands of #36 gauge wire. The strands are organized by first creating a bundle of 7 strands. Then 7 of these bundles are put together into super bundles. Finally 108 super bundles are used to make the final cable. Each group of wires is wound in a helix so that when the wire is flexed, the part of a bundle that is stretched moves around the helix to a part that is compressed to allow the wire to have less stress."
Not much problem with high frequency losses in a 12 VDC system. The proper name for their so-called "skin effect" is actually the Miller Effect.
I know. Zero frequency definitely can't be construed as being "high". Sorry for using Wikipedia. I know they have lots of errors. This article was pretty close, though. I was just too lazy to type it all in myself. I mainly wanted to make sure the arguments being made were based on fact rather than theory. :evilsmile As to the Miller Effect, I will admit to never having heard the real name before. I like learning new things.
