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Voltage Drop

Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:12 pm

What size aluminum conductor should I use? Service line for a poultry house, 120/240 volt service, 155' from trasformer pole to load site. Estimated load is 190 amps and I can only have a 1.5% voltage drop.

Re: Voltage Drop

Tue Apr 13, 2004 2:19 am

jcash wrote:What size aluminum conductor should I use? Service line for a poultry house, 120/240 volt service, 155' from trasformer pole to load site. Estimated load is 190 amps and I can only have a 1.5% voltage drop.
The answer, of course, is that you shouldn't use aluminum at all.

The answer is 350 kCmil wire. tough to find. You'll want to use 4/0 copper in real life.

Check out http://www.electrician.com/vd_calculator.html for a handy voltage drop calculator.

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm has a good reference for finding resistivity of copper wire. all you'll need to remember is that aluminum wire has a k 1.64 times that of copper, and you should be able to convert.

cable size comparison

Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:48 am

Knight wrote:
jcash wrote:What size aluminum conductor should I use? Service line for a poultry house, 120/240 volt service, 155' from trasformer pole to load site. Estimated load is 190 amps and I can only have a 1.5% voltage drop.
The answer, of course, is that you shouldn't use aluminum at all.

The answer is 350 kCmil wire. tough to find. You'll want to use 4/0 copper in real life.

Check out http://www.electrician.com/vd_calculator.html for a handy voltage drop calculator.

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm has a good reference for finding resistivity of copper wire. all you'll need to remember is that aluminum wire has a k 1.64 times that of copper, and you should be able to convert.
I am using 4/0 welding cable; what is the equilivent in "HCM" size?

Re: cable size comparison

Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:06 am

peter upton wrote:I am using 4/0 welding cable; what is the equilivent in "HCM" size?
I'm not sure what "HCM size" is. AWM 4/0 wire (American Wire Gauge) is 120 mm for metric standard.

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