Author Topic: Voltage Drop Calculator  (Read 6211 times)

Offline Carlman

  • Audio Neurotic
  • *****
  • Posts: 3037
Voltage Drop Calculator
« on: January 11, 2008, 10:08:14 AM »
There's a ton of 'em out there but thought I'd post a link to a voltage drop calculator here for reference:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/voltagedropcalc.html
Enjoy.
-C
I really enjoy listening to music.

mgalusha

  • Guest
Re: Voltage Drop Calculator
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2008, 06:21:27 PM »
Nice. According to that with a 5A load in my new room will see a drop of .4V. That's a 30ft run of 10GA copper. Of course most of the time the load will be less than 5A, so things should be good. It would be .8 with 12GA, so going up 1 size cut that in 1/2.

Offline richidoo

  • Out Of My Speaker Cabinet
  • ******
  • Posts: 11144
Re: Voltage Drop Calculator
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2008, 08:56:54 PM »
I wonder if that JPS power wire has lower resistance or worthy of finding out the specs to see what's going on with it.

Offline Bill O'Connell

  • Obsessively Audiophilic
  • ****
  • Posts: 360
    • http://www.morningstaraudio.com
Re: Voltage Drop Calculator
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2008, 09:28:42 AM »
Mike , I know you just built a new audio room, did you use that JPS wire from the box to your outlets?
 Carl, are you going to use this wire in the (cave) once you start the basement room?
 
 I ran dedicated lines years back and just used some 12 gauge stranded wire from Home depot but since then I wish I would have gone with some different wire as I was using some of this stuff for speaker wire and wasn't bad so thought I would run it from my box to the outlets. I wish I had used the 6 gauge 17 strand from Lowes that was all the rage for speaker cable a while back when Bound For Sound considered it the best wire they had ever used for speaker cable regardless of price. It's a little to big I had thought for hooking up to outlets from the box .
 I have talked with Shane(Hometheatredoc) about using the JPS wire and if I could ever get my nephew(electrician) over here to pull a couple of wires so I can find out the footage I need to change from box to outlets I will probably go with the JPS stuff for the dedicated lines.
 Any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Bill

   
Bill O'Connell,
Retired /Morningstar Audio/Eastern Electric distributor for North America
847-255-1150
"If your playing more than 3 chords your just showing off"  John Lee Hooker

Offline richidoo

  • Out Of My Speaker Cabinet
  • ******
  • Posts: 11144
Re: Voltage Drop Calculator
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2008, 11:56:06 AM »
JPS' biggest speaker wire is 5ga twisted, maybe something to that "size does matter" question.

Offline Carlman

  • Audio Neurotic
  • *****
  • Posts: 3037
Re: Voltage Drop Calculator
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2008, 01:36:30 PM »
I'll have a very short service line from the meter to the panel for gear, maybe 5-10'... and then very short for the runs from the panel to the outlets... Probably only 10-15'... I'm not completely sold on the JPS wire being the best for me.  I want to keep this room as 'unbiased' as possible for comparisons.  And it's really expensive.  I was thinking of doing 12ga Romex that's been cryo'd. 

I've heard THHN wire is good also... and that Belden 83803 is good to use.. etc... In the end, inspectors won't raise an eyebrow when they see something familiar... and I can always change things down the road to see if it really makes an across-the-board improvement.... But I need to get to square 1 first...

-Carl
I really enjoy listening to music.

mgalusha

  • Guest
Re: Voltage Drop Calculator
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2008, 07:00:30 PM »
Bill,

I didn't use the JPS In Wall as it would have broke the budget. Putting in the new box and the 2GA wire feeding it plus the 240V drops in the garage ran about $1350. Adding the JPS wire to the new room for the new outlets would have added at least another 1K to that, and like Carl I'm not 100% it's worth the extra $$ and in this case I'd rather use the extra cash for other parts of the room.

Perhaps it would sound better than the 10GA romex but I suspect it will be pretty good with the romex. The 2GA is twisted and so should reject some noise.