![]() Now you know what went wrong in the 1970s. Take careful note of that: the opposite is not true.īingo. The lugs are aluminum because aluminum lugs are "the universal donor" due to thermal expansion characteristics. No, because you're still attaching to lugs that are made of aluminum in most cases, and so you're creating a dissimilar metal bond where none needs to exist. Why not compare apples and apples? #3 copper and #1 aluminum have exactly the same ampacity. Or you can just buy #2AL for everything LOL. By the time they're ready to install, they're much better informed. Which for wire, I boil down to a Harper's Law:īecause wire is usually cut to spec and non-returnable, and I see lots of these discussions where understanding of wire requirement is a slowly evolving process as we discuss needs. but learn the lesson! Which is "learn first, then buy". So what do you want to hear OP? A bunch of back-slapping, helping you justify your purchase choice? Or the honest truth.īecause the actually helpful takeaway here is that yeah, you did kinda waste some money because you bought before you learned, nothing I would worry about. you just won't be able to sell your house if you do LOL. The AA-1350 alloy was outlawed in favor of the better AA-8000 (honestly, not seeing the reason for this anymore).using receptacles with lugs not properly certified for aluminum! (CO-ALR is the standard now, "R" for Revised).failing to torque screws properly (illegal on everything now, NEC 110.14, due to it failing on every kind of wire in equal measure). ![]() Often the connections to the building cannot withstand larger motors starting amperage and they get smoked, even with a current limiting device like the main breaker or 250 amp fuse box.Ĭlick to expand.On 15-20A small branch circuits, yeah. That is why you need to inform the power company if you have a motor larger than 3hp motor on site. The lineman said that without some sort of current limiting device the same thing would happen again. In the case of the Navy motor having no circuit breakers to limit inrush current, it drew more than the 1,600 amps the pole transformer is capable of safely delivering. Put a 125 amp breaker in place of the 100 amp breaker and the induction device draws less than 70 amps and never trips any breakers. But because the wire is so large and allows such a high inrush current there is a voltage drop that causes continued higher amperage draw around 140 amps, which eventually trips the breaker. I witnessed the same effects with a very large 3/0 temporary wire, fed by a 100 amp breaker, feeding an induction device drawing less than 70 amps when it is properly supplied with the correct voltage. The reason is that the #10 wire allows inrush amperage to exceed the 15 amp breakers maximum allowable current, and it trips. If you power the same AC unit with a #12, a #14, or even a short piece of number sixteen wire it starts fine and does not trip the breaker. Again it may be negligible and not even matter for garage tools but again just discussing theoretically.Ĭlick to expand.Are you serious? Did you read what I wrote? I stated that if you power a 120-volt ac unit, with a short run of solid #10 wire and limit the current with a 15 amp breaker, the breaker will trip. I heard copper would produce electricity closer to 60hz than aluminum. Again I understand the loss may be extremely small and not matter in the real world but just interested if there is any loss at all. In this theoretical case would there be any benefits of using copper over aluminum.īecause the aluminum has more resistance would there be any loss of energy at the end of the wire over copper or does the larger gauge aluminum make them the same resistance. Let’s also imagine the price was exactly the same. So let’s make a few assumptions that are not exactly true but for this discussion let’s imagine 2 gauge copper and 1 gauge aluminum had the same exact amp capacity (I know 2 gauge copper is actually a little higher). I would like to understand the differences in theory although they may be minor and never be realized in real life. I understand this and makes sense in the real world. I understand their reasoning that aluminum is safe and cheaper even for a larger gauge with same amperage. ![]() Most people suggested going with aluminum to feed the sub. Fortunately it was a year ago so I missed the huge jump in prices. I recently ran a sub panel and used 2 gauge copper. ![]() So this is a theoretical discussion not practical.
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