Budget 0 gauge power wire?

[ehall8702]

Currently have Soundbox 0 gauge power wire, I know it's not legit 0gauge but have been battling trying to justify buying true 0 wire since I have no real issues with what I have now. I have enough of the Soundbox stuff left to run a second run from front to back, is that comparable to true 0 gauge wire?  Or should I just bite the bullet and spend $100 on some skyhigh wire or $150 on welding cable? And what do you guys suggest for budget wire for 2700 watts rms? I have 2 trunk batteries ( sealed agm 55ah actually meant for a powerchair) and a 140a alternator and big 4 with same Soundbox 0. Have enough to double up the big 4 along with the run to the rear too. Also on an off note, where should I hook my volt meter up to? Going to grab a second one so I can have one on my battery bank and one up front.

[bmwking]

budget 1/0 is obv gonna be CCA wire, but as luck would have it 99% of us will never notice a difference in current delivery between OFC and CCA.  From the reviews on your soundbox wire it sounds like it's overly jacketed 4ga, which happens, whatever.

I see no reason why the CAB 1/0 wouldnt work out for you. $60 for a 50ft spool, which should leave you plenty of wire to do 2 runs front to back and grounds and have enough to redo your big 4. and if not, well fuck it, buy 2 spools and still spend less than the pricier options

http://www.caraudiobargain.com/cab-1-0-tinned-cca-wire/

 

as far as hooking up your voltmeter, assuming it has 2 wires (+ red and - black), you can ground it behind your dash at a good point of your choosing.  and extend the power lead to the remote turn on of you sub amp.  if it has 3 wires(+, -, and a 3rd), ground the black wire, red to switched 12v, and 3rd wire extended to the b+ of your sub amp. 

at least that's what i did.  so yeah, take it all with a grain of salt. 

 

or don't, i aint your dad.

[ehall8702]

I have compared my 0 to some "real" 2gauge and they are pretty close,  also have some.stinger 4 gauge and it's bigger than that by quite a bit. So maybe a real 2.5-3 gauge lol will check out the cab stuff tho, just was looking at stinger and all the big names and price is retarded. Didn't think about hooking to remote wire,  will do that for sure, still going to get a second one for rear battery bank I think just cause I got a perfect spot for 2 meters.  I damn sure appreciate the help, this is one of the biggest personal builds I have done in a long long time and am always learning new shit too. Since you seem to always be the one giving me.a solid answer, lemme ask u one more thing plz, any reason my battery bank reads 12.3 with the truck on and my main battery reads 14.4-8?  If I pull main fuse I get 14+ on main battery side and 12.3 on bank side, as soon as I put fuse back in it shows 12.3 on both sides but terminal on main battery still shows 14.4? 

[bmwking]

1 minute ago, ehall8702 said:

I have compared my 0 to some "real" 2gauge and they are pretty close,  also have some.stinger 4 gauge and it's bigger than that by quite a bit. So maybe a real 2.5-3 gauge lol will check out the cab stuff tho, just was looking at stinger and all the big names and price is retarded. Didn't think about hooking to remote wire,  will do that for sure, still going to get a second one for rear battery bank I think just cause I got a perfect spot for 2 meters.  I damn sure appreciate the help, this is one of the biggest personal builds I have done in a long long time and am always learning new shit too. Since you seem to always be the one giving me.a solid answer, lemme ask u one more thing plz, any reason my battery bank reads 12.3 with the truck on and my main battery reads 14.4-8?  If I pull main fuse I get 14+ on main battery side and 12.3 on bank side, as soon as I put fuse back in it shows 12.3 on both sides but terminal on main battery still shows 14.4? 

not a problem bud, it's why we're here

yeah the last time i was shopping for power/ground cable was like 2 years ago and welding cable was NOT as pricey as i just saw, that's nuts.  (also keep in mind, welding cable is AWG and car audio cable is not.  so 2/0 AWG is closest to 1/0 car audio due to car audio stuff being over sized in general).

the only reason the bank is reading so low has to be a failing battery, in my experience at least.  the front battery is getting the lick right off the alternator (right to the terminal where you can still read 14.4) so it stays high but one of your 2 back batteries has a fault.  id almost guarantee it.  see if you can disconnect the rear batteries separately from each other.  if you can, and leave one connected to the front at a time, i bet one of them shows 14.4 and the other pulls the system down.  if that happens, then whichever battery pulls the voltage down is your bad battery and needs replacing or at the very least immediate removal from the system (all it's doing is presenting a draw to the system, it's not even acting as a battery).  if they both pull it down, i think it's time to find more reliable batteries, something rated for automotive applications.  I tried to look into your wheelchair batteries some more and while i couldn't find too much info on them, i also didnt find enough to convince me that i'd want to use them in my own ride.  dont get me wrong, i like being cheap and free shit is free shit (hell i custom sourced my lithium for less than $500), but sometimes that free shit doesn't actually do you any favors ?

i dont know your budget so im just taking a stab at this, but i figure about $200 is reasonable for a secondary battery for us enthusiasts (not competitors).  I'd be inclined to use something like this (minus that it weighs almost 70lbs, lowered cars dont like added weight):

 https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Battery-Marine-Off-grid-Applications/dp/B075RFXHYK

 

the max 5 second discharge rate on that battery is 1200 amps.  that's a huge amount of power, and i'd bet more than the wheelchair batteries which are probably designed to discharge more gently to increase their duration between charges.

[ehall8702]

I was thinking about testing each battery this weekend, just put em on charge as a matter of fact. I'll be without em all weekend tho, my interstate battery guy says a battery needs 8-10 hours at 20-30 amps to be fully charged ( after you check the acid level of course) and needs to rest atleast 18-24 hours before a load test is done so the surface charge doesn't give u a false pass. So that's what I'm gonna do. Not sure if that applies to all batteries, maybe just wet cell batteries?  my buddies power chair takes a 8 hr charge at 20amps to charge it fully so I'd suspect it'd ve the same.  And I replaced Mt welding leads about 8 years ago on my old jobsite stick welder and it cost almost $600 for 2 runs of 30' each! I just found 1/0 welding cable for $120 for 50', still not cheap but do I actually need that big with 2700 watts rms? 

[bmwking]

13 hours ago, ehall8702 said:

I was thinking about testing each battery this weekend, just put em on charge as a matter of fact. I'll be without em all weekend tho, my interstate battery guy says a battery needs 8-10 hours at 20-30 amps to be fully charged ( after you check the acid level of course) and needs to rest atleast 18-24 hours before a load test is done so the surface charge doesn't give u a false pass. So that's what I'm gonna do. Not sure if that applies to all batteries, maybe just wet cell batteries?  my buddies power chair takes a 8 hr charge at 20amps to charge it fully so I'd suspect it'd ve the same.  And I replaced Mt welding leads about 8 years ago on my old jobsite stick welder and it cost almost $600 for 2 runs of 30' each! I just found 1/0 welding cable for $120 for 50', still not cheap but do I actually need that big with 2700 watts rms? 

im pretty sure you interstate guy was talking about wet cell batteries.  agm you cant open and check or top up.  as far as his charge and rest method, if you have the time and the gumption to do it, go for it.  but you could find that bad battery in minutes by doing what i said.

charging rates arent necessarily correlated with discharge rates fyi, something to keep in mind.  

 

as far as the welding cable, keep in mind 1/0 welding will be closer to 2ga car audio.  if you want full car audio sized 1/0, youll need to use 2/0 welding cable.  as far as needing it... well... if youre trying to put out a house fire, do you want a garden hose or a fire hose?  sure you may not need the full flow capacity of the fire hose, but it's better than not having enough.  im running 3k rms in my daily right now and have a 270a singer, 2 runs of GP audio 2/0, group 49 agm, custom lithium cell, and some lithiums from a nissan leaf (just testing these out, havent decided on keeping them yet or not).  my voltage doesnt drop below 13.9 on full tilt.  i have a 5k waiting to go in, and i want to be up to the task of powering it.  so it's up to you really.  i mean shit, go for the cab wire.  if nothing else, it's better than what you've got right now

[Bret]

For what its worth I bought some copper welding cable 1/0 for $1.80/ft shipped. The wire diameter is roughly .4". It is more than adequate for my little system. I'm not recommending this for your application just trying to help you compare it to other products.

[BassMunky]

Just get welding

[ehall8702]

So, checked my batteries this weekend, both showed 14.4 at battery and load tested fine. Think I found my issue, high resistance on the main ground. Bolt was tight and clean but noticed the solder was very discolored and wire was actually loose inside of the ring terminal. I have been soldering, and welding for almost 20 years, and can solder with the best of em, so maybe I used some bunk ass solder? Now all my ring terminals are suspect ( like 25 of em lol) so I'll be pulling EVERY wire and cutting amd crimping new terminals on everything.  Dont have new wire yet, so will be redoing my old wire for now. I'm going with the CAB wire and solid lug terminals and crimping them when I do it this time. I always thought soldering was the best way to get more continuity but the more I have read the more it seems crimping is better. What's yalls thoughts and what's a good crimp.tool? Iis the punch style or the hexagonal style better?

[bcbrassard]

Hexagonal all the way! even crimp all around to make a cold weld to the wire. Amazon has cheap good crimping tools, check there.