Bob The Builder
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2021
- Messages
- 109
I have about a 125 foot run from solar panels to my house meter. I would use copper. What size and kinda of wire and how many individual wires. to minimize lost for a 10 k system?
My micro inverter capacity is 9600w. I ran #4, 250 feet. I get about 5v drop over the run when it is running full power. Pretty funny to think of a voltage "drop". At the house I am measuring about 245v AC. At the solar array breaker box, I measure 250v AC when it is working hard.More conductor in the ground is always better, I’m gonna say at least 8 awg should do you good. Also pulling that through conduit will be a good workout and set you up for future expansion.
That and the copper manufacturing industry approves.
It might be worth your while to price copper and aluminum. An aluminum conductor will have more loss so you will need a larger size to get the same loss as smaller copper. The tables referenced earlier will help.. They are both commodities that fluctuate from time to time. I have a similar run and switched to micros because losses with AC are less. I am still figuring out whether copper or aluminum is the most economical.I would use copper.
My micro inverter capacity is 9600w. I ran #4, 250 feet. I get about 5v drop over the run when it is running full power. Pretty funny to think of a voltage "drop". At the house I am measuring about 245v AC. At the solar array breaker box, I measure 250v AC when it is working hard.
A good amount of NoAlox can reduce the oxdation of the Aluminum which means you can make most connectors work as long as you use the right torque and tighten after a few cycles,Unless the terminals on either end require that.
It's not that. Certain equipment requires copper wires if you care about not losing the UL listing. If the setup needs to pass inspection, that is of serious consideration.A good amount of NoAlox can reduce the oxdation of the Aluminum which means you can make most connectors work as long as you use the right torque and tighten after a few cycles,
Thanks, how many wires did you run?I just completed pulling wire which was almost the same distance as yours. I went overboard and used 4awg copper, looked into aluminum but did not want to mess with the extra connections. There was no voltage drop after checking either.
Very new to solar but started purchasing items, not sure of the final specs of the whole system.
Few more items came in, wanted to clean up the 12v wiring and added bus bars. Batteries are still doing very well even during discharge. The connectors are to allow moving the charge controller between banks. I was unable to delete the chart data to correct the -200kwh but if you re-install the...diysolarforum.com
I ran two pairs for two arrays, I was very lucky to find a great deal on the wire, plus two cat6 cables. Aluminum was much cheaper but having to reduce down for the charge controllers and 3 inch conduit was significantly higher as well.Thanks, how many wires did you run?
Ok I swapped the wires from the CTs at the transmitter. It's not adding wattage but the watts are not as high as I am reading at the invertor on my Kill A Watt meter. I read 220 watts at the invertor and it increased 120 watts on my wireless display. It has to backfeed through 120 foot of #2 cable. Now I pulled one wire at a time off the transmitter and the wireless meter dropped about the same for each leg. It's working but not accurate as I'd like. I'm going to try repositioning the CT clamps on the mains.It all depends on PV voltage, and current. The higher the voltage, the better.
My panels are all 100' to 200' from (600V max input) GT PV inverters. Multiple runs of 12 awg wire, a pair per PV string. Paralleled, fused if necessary, at the inverters. This allows me to scramble connections as I change inverter models and sizes.