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Finally got some of this unicorn 8awg PV wire!

Firstascent

Solar Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 7, 2020
Messages
265
I had been looking everywhere for good 8awg PV (UL 4703) wire and that alone was difficult. Then I upped my specs and decided I not only wanted 8awg PV wire but also tinned copper and a high strand count. Found a couple/few spec sheets online, called many companies but nobody offered it anymore and said it had been 2-4 years since they last had some.

Well, I finally found some! I had to friggin order 1000' of it too, ugh! I probably only need 100'. The only downside which I had to settle for was I could only get it in black, so I'll be using this for my negative and positive runs and will just mark my positive clearly with red heat shrink or something.

This will connect my 4 large panels on top of my 43' fifth wheel. I should note that 10awg wire would've been just fine and I know that :) With my 4 panels in a 2s2p config I'll only be pushing a little over 20a.

Here's the spec of the wire
8awg, PV (UL 4703), tinned copper, high strand count at 168, 1 conductor.

These are the specs of my individual panels showing that I do NOT need 8awg haha
Pmax 370w
Vmpp 35.5v
Impp 10.43A
Voc 41.9v
Isc 10.96A

I did order 8awg MC4 connectors from Staubli as well but haven't received them yet so I'll have a better idea next week on the quality and fitment of those.
 

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You didn't provide a url for the MC4 . . .

I WANT SOME CABLE! Let's sync up and have a win-win. You snip snip ship ship and I paypal you for the costs of everything. What say ye?


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You didn't provide a url for the MC4 . . .

I WANT SOME CABLE! Let's sync up and have a win-win. You snip snip ship ship and I paypal you for the costs of everything. What say ye?


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Haha here you go! You’ll see 10awg and 8awg, make and female etc. they shipped it the next day after ordering out of California, I’m in Oregon right now so I should get it quickly!

And yes haha! I’ll post something up in the for sale area too but I definitely want to recoup some wire costs! PM me and we’ll figure something out!
 
Overkill for sure. Not that I have a leg to stand on since I used 10 awg when 14 would have likely been good enough.
Haha oh yeah you went two sizes up I only went one, I feel better now ?

If anyone is ever curious, I threw a 6awg ferrule on it, the wire insulation is too large for the ferrule cover to fit over. I might buy some non insulated ferrules
 

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Haha oh yeah you went two sizes up I only went one, I feel better now ?

If anyone is ever curious, I threw a 6awg ferrule on it, the wire insulation is too large for the ferrule cover to fit over. I might buy some non insulated ferrules
You don’t want the ‘insulated’ ferrules in my opinion. I like the bare ones and heat shrink, sometimes tape over that for overkill.

FWIW I upped to 8ga solar cables myself a few years back. Mostly cuz ‘mentally’ I knew less line loss and expected no improvement- just an ocd experiment. What happened was that occasionally my max amps would go up around 12A with 2 100W panels and windyNation P30L pwm. Prior to that I think 9.8A tops is all I’d ever seen. Ymmv but that shocked me. I have the parts and panels for 700W/12V but haven’t done that cuz the current 2S2P/epever mppt (400W, 24V) is just working so well.

You’ll never see me dissing overcabling stuff :)
 
You don’t want the ‘insulated’ ferrules in my opinion. I like the bare ones and heat shrink, sometimes tape over that for overkill.

FWIW I upped to 8ga solar cables myself a few years back. Mostly cuz ‘mentally’ I knew less line loss and expected no improvement- just an ocd experiment. What happened was that occasionally my max amps would go up around 12A with 2 100W panels and windyNation P30L pwm. Prior to that I think 9.8A tops is all I’d ever seen. Ymmv but that shocked me. I have the parts and panels for 700W/12V but haven’t done that cuz the current 2S2P/epever mppt (400W, 24V) is just working so well.

You’ll never see me dissing overcabling stuff :)

Yup I get it and I’m with ya! I knew exactly what I was doing and expect no improvement. It if I’m doing a custom install I like having those little extra touches to set it apart. Even though functionally it’ll be the same haha.

now, if I were to throw some 4/0 pv wire in there, then I’d be asking more questions… about my sanity ?

At least we got it in writing this time! J/K

But seriously thanks for sharing the real world the example. It's good to know stuff. 'Mo betta


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?? too funny.

Ya know there is SO much info out there yet I always seem to find a question I can’t find an answer to ha! And I like real world as opposed to ‘yeah that’ll work” haha
 
At seriously the real world the example. It's good to know stuff. 'Mo betta


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And it makes no sense it’s just what happened. Don’t want people to think it’s a good plan. It won’t hurt anything but you can’t be banking on amps above the panel ratings, either.
 
Wirecableyourway has 8 AWG PV wire

I did come across them in my search, and they sell it by the foot which can be a big plus for most people!
copper, 19 strands instead of 7 to give it a tad more flexibility, PV rated. All in all a good option, and they have multiple colors.

I wanted high strand count 150+ and tinned, otherwise they were a high contender for me.
 
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