When I'm figuring what size wire and the distance I can run at a certain amp and voltage my question is this: According to my specs I can run 50' of wire at my ratings, from my panel (I have one) to my fuse box (combiner box, if I had more then one panel) is 45' so I am fine. Then from my fuse box to my charge controller is 30'. Now seeing I only have one panel the amperage is not increased at the combiner box, do I consider this two seperate runs under 50' or one run of 80"? Thank you
Steve
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13 years 6 months ago
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Hi Steve,
You will need to use the total 80 ft run when calculating the wire size. The voltage drop and wire size calcuation becomes complicated on a circuit with different voltages.
The fuse doesn't alter the voltage or amperage. You can put the fuse in the beginning or the end of the circuit too; it doesn't matter where the fuse is.
I also just wanted to share with you the wire size calculator that I use frequently.
http://www.southwire.com/support/voltage-drop-calculator.htm
Hope it would be helpful
I'm very interested in your calculator but the link you provided doesn't seem to work. These links are always fussy, what I do sometimes before I post a link on a board is e-mail it to myself to check and see if it works. When I click on yours it says "HTTP Status 405 - HTTP method GET is not supported by this URL ""
One more question concerning the wire length, if I had 2-3 runs going to my combiner box, how would I figure the wire size between my combiner box and controller (it's about 30' between), if I have to calculate at least one of the runs from the panel to the combiner box, which would be at a different amperage, then adding the 2 or 3 together after the combiner box to the controller?
Sorry Steve, here is the link:
http://www.southwire.com/support/voltage-drop-calculator.htm
To your question;
You need to calculate each node seperately and add the voltages and currents.
In this case, Node 1: Array-to-Combiner; Node 2: Combiner-to-Charge Controller seems to be the solution.