Incidentally, this helps illustrate why the trend is always toward higher system voltages: the power losses in the wiring are equal to I^2 * R -- if you double the system voltage you can halve the wire size / weight / cost of copper without any additional losses (or keep the same size wire and experience only one-quarter the power loss). That's why we went from six volts to twelve, why large vehicles and boats use 24v, and why there's a push to have new vehicles use a 48v system (which is beginning to get scary in terms of shock potential). It's also why they use a million or so volts to carry AC power across country, and 5,000 volts across town. And why Edison's DC generator system was doomed from the start -- he couldn't use transformers to boost the voltage for transmission and had to generate it at the same voltage it was to be used, making it necessary to have a generating station every few blocks. david
At 08:13 AM 10/5/2002, George Goff wrote: >So, if I use 500 ft. of 4/0 instead of 10 ft. of #14, I should be good to go. > Right? (insert requisite smiley here) > >George -- David Beierl - Providence, RI http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/ '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage" '85 GL "Poor Relation" |
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