Pv wire gauge

Hi I have a eg4 6000xp and I’m connecting five 400 W solar panels in series and what can I get away with on the PV wire as in the gauge size for this set up, i’m thinking 40 or 50 feet from the panels to the inverter, I have a picture of one of the panels amp and watts rating. Thanks for your help in advance.

There are several voltage/ current/awg charts online but 10awg would be perfect.

Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable going smaller diameter both for safety and adding more in the future.



Southwire says minimum 14awg for 250v DC and 11 amps. That is if some voltage drop is acceptable. I think that's way too small.

10awg, 12awg at the least.

KnobCountry said:

There are several voltage/ current/awg charts online but 10awg would be perfect.

Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable going smaller diameter both for safety and adding more in the future.

Voltage Drop Calculator | Southwire

www.southwire.com

Southwire says minimum 14awg for 250v DC and 11 amps. That is if some voltage drop is acceptable. I think that's way too small.

Circuit Distance Calculator

This calculator will determine the maximum length of a circuit based on maximum percent voltage drop.

wiresizecalculator.net

Click to expand...

Thank you very much

Rednecktek said:

10awg, 12awg at the least.

Click to expand...

Thank you very much

I'm in the same situation, but can't get past the math in the connection to the panels. How are you connecting the panels? The 6000xp needs minimum of 17 Amps and 100 VDC. In series you'd only have 10.9 Amps and 150 VDC. The voltage would be fine but the amperage would be too low right? Did this work with the 6000XP? Series/Parallel would be 21.8A & 75.6VDC right? So, now amps are OK, but the voltage is too low, how do we get around this? Confused!

10 gauge PV wire will carry 30 amps. 12 gauge is 20 amps.

The distance is miniscule in this situation. I would not use 12 gauge as it will possibly limit your future expansion. 10 gauge is pretty cheap still and 30 amps is a good amount of power since many of the new all in one inverters have MPPT controllers of 15-25 amps capacity.

Of note is this: From the panels to the combiner box by the panels you can use PV wire. PV wire is UV resistant for exposure to sunlight in the air. But if you install a small junction box and then conduit to the inverter, you can use 10 awg thhn/thwn wire which is not UV resistant, but is water resistant and much cheaper by the foot than PV rated wire.

MainerUSNR said:

I'm in the same situation, but can't get past the math in the connection to the panels. How are you connecting the panels? The 6000xp needs minimum of 17 Amps and 100 VDC. In series you'd only have 10.9 Amps and 150 VDC. The voltage would be fine but the amperage would be too low right? Did this work with the 6000XP? Series/Parallel would be 21.8A & 75.6VDC right? So, now amps are OK, but the voltage is too low, how do we get around this? Confused!

Click to expand...

No minimum on the amps, just the voltage so as long as you exceed that and a little for voltage drop under load you'll still generate power.

Rednecktek said:

No minimum on the amps, just the voltage so as long as you exceed that and a little for voltage drop under load you'll still generate power.

Click to expand...

Ok, thank you!