big 3, and speaker wire

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

i have 2 questions. 1) i did 2 of the big three, battery to ground, and ground to engine, how important is the last one, alt to battery?when i put my new engine in my car i had some problems with the post on the alt wanting to spin and i fear its gonna break if i try to take and mess with it.

2)what is the difference between 12 gauge 120v house wire, and 12v speaker wire? wire is wire, right. 12 gauge is still 12 gauge no matter what its made of. flexability is the only diff. i think. any help greatly appreciated. thanx

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[Radar 10+ year member]

Wire is wire, no difference.

As for the big 3 I cant really comment on that because I dont have a whole lot of knowledge in that area.

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

Houses uses Romex 3 or 4 with ground and is solid stranded. Solid stranded carries more current than stranded wire, and higher voltages. That is all. Stranded wire is used in car applications to where there's not that many volts you have to deal with...

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

so all in all i would get more voltage to the speakers w/ solid wire over stranded? also is the last of the big 3 a big deal. also, the wire form the alt to the battery goes into a fuse box, bolted to the top of the battery, with a 50A fuse in it from the factory. i have a 75A alt, will i get more power is i jump around this fuse?

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

Doesn't matter. A house uses AC where as a car uses DC. You'd still get the same amount of voltage b/c of different type of electricty.

 

[Moe Lester 10+ year member]

so all in all i would get more voltage to the speakers w/ solid wire over stranded? also is the last of the big 3 a big deal. also, the wire form the alt to the battery goes into a fuse box, bolted to the top of the battery, with a 50A fuse in it from the factory. i have a 75A alt, will i get more power is i jump around this fuse?

No, you are gonna get the same voltage, the solid just has a little bit higher capacity than the stranded does.

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

does anyone know about this fuse? should i jump around it?

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

12 gage is 12 gage. Wire is sized by circular mils (current carrying area), not diameter. Solid wire fatigues more with vibration and breaks easier. Not recommended in a car environment.

The wire from alt to battery is probably the most important one to upgrade of the big 3. If your terminal breaks off, you needed a new alt anyway //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

^x2. I've read that the battery+ => alternator is the the "current field"...in other words, where the alternator grabs it's source of current from. Just think about it, if you've got a 10ga wire as that wire, and all of a sudden the alternator needs to put out 100 amps, the voltage is gonna drop cause that sized wire can't carry that much current. Compare that with a 1/0ga wire....with that, it's no thing...

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

ok, but about that 50 amp fuse would that be stopping any current here? i was thinking about it and i don't think it would be, cause if i was trying to pull more than 50 amps it would of blown by now...right?