Tom, yours is the practical kind of analysis here. I went thru similar estimates with my boat and ended up opting for 1/0 cabling for batt-controller-motor. Max current I ever draw is about 130amps and typical is in the 20-50amp range.
-Myles
From: electricboats@yahoogroups.com [mailto:electricboats@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tom
Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 10:35 PM
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Electric Boats] voltage drop
This talk about very large cables got me wondering what voltage drop other builders were designing for.
I cruise at 10-20A, with a theoretical max of 100A (never done that yet). With 1AWG cable running 20' round trip the voltage drop at max current is about 1/2 of 1%.
So at full power (5KW) my cables are losing 25W. But I am usually running 20A or less (1KW), so my losses are most often less than 3W.
I could've installed larger cables, of course, but given the additional
cost, and compared to the other unavoidable (and much larger) losses inherent in EP, going with larger cables offered little improvement.
So I'd like to ask others who designed their own system, what voltage drop did you design for, and why?
-Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment