shawn73
Member
- Location
- Napoleon, Ohio
I just bet my coworker at our factory a 12 pack of beer and won, but I still question the theory behind it all. We pulled 1000' of 16 ga multi-conductor cable in for an alarm circuit. Anyway, he bet me that we would have a voltage drop of 5-6 volts if we put a 24v power supply on one end and checked voltage on the other. I said that there would be less than a volt of drop. It turned out the voltage was the same from one end to the other, 24.4 volts.
Ok, if electricity is related to water (as a lot of people seem to compare), it seems to me that I could have 10,000 foot of wire and as long as there was nothing but my multimeter on the other end there should be no voltage drop. (A garden hose full of water will have the same pressure anywhere within-without any flow.) I believe that if a load is placed on the end there will be a lack of current and a voltage drop because of the distance. Is this correct?
How would there ever be a voltage drop in the situation I described and is there a formula to calculate the drop using only the wire as as the load on the circuit.
Thanks again.
Shawn
Ok, if electricity is related to water (as a lot of people seem to compare), it seems to me that I could have 10,000 foot of wire and as long as there was nothing but my multimeter on the other end there should be no voltage drop. (A garden hose full of water will have the same pressure anywhere within-without any flow.) I believe that if a load is placed on the end there will be a lack of current and a voltage drop because of the distance. Is this correct?
How would there ever be a voltage drop in the situation I described and is there a formula to calculate the drop using only the wire as as the load on the circuit.
Thanks again.
Shawn