wallygator7
New member
- Location
- birmingham alabama
I have a 10 amp load 400 feet away 120 volts , what size if cable do I run
what size uf cable
- Thread starter wallygator7
- Start date
- Status
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
Without giving the answer try this site to calculate the size. http://www.elec-toolbox.com/calculators/voltdrop.htm. Here you can choose al or copper
petersonra
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern illinois
- Occupation
- engineer
that will be some expensive cable.
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
Yep esp. if you use copper
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Length of cable will not effect of ampacity of the cable, 10 amps will still create same amount of heat in same sized conductor at any cross sectional point. Length will change circuit resistance and that normally 10 amp load will end up being less than 10 amps for resistive load anyway. Inductive loads very well may draw more amps if voltage is low at the load, causing even more voltage drop and more current to be drawn.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
First question you have to ask yourself is how much voltage drop is acceptable for the application?
After determining that and the minimum size wire, the next question is whether running a higher voltage circuit with a step down transfomer at the load end would be more cost effective.
Note that UF cable may be problematic. If you upsize the ungrounded conductor, you need to upsize the grounding wire proporationately. If 10-2 was large enough, you'd be OK. But 8-2 and 6-2 still use a #10 ground which is too small. I think you're looking at 8-2 or 6-2 unless you can tolerate the voltage drop of a 10-2 cable. You may need to go the transformer route, even if just a 120-240 1 KVA transformer.
Can you change the load to 240V?
Can you change the load to 240V?
Note that UF cable may be problematic. If you upsize the ungrounded conductor, you need to upsize the grounding wire proportionately. If 10-2 was large enough, you'd be OK. But 8-2 and 6-2 still use a #10 ground which is too small. I think you're looking at 8-2 or 6-2 unless you can tolerate the voltage drop of a 10-2 cable. You may need to go the transformer route, even if just a 120-240 1 KVA transformer.
Can you change the load to 240V?
Can you change the load to 240V?
- Status