Dumb wiring question..

[EnvEe 02 10+ year member]

Can I run a single 1/0 and split it into 2 8g at the distro?. One of my amps can take bigger wire but the other cant. I already have the 1/0 and really dont feel like having to replace it with another wire.

Sorry for the dumb question

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[young_gun 10+ year member]

Yea, you can. I'd run two 4g wires personally though.

 

[spoonraker 10+ year member]

You should be able to split a single 1/0 run into dual 4ga runs if necessary, so yes dual 8ga will have no problem.

Also when you use a distro block all the ouputs don't have to be the same gauge. You said one amp can take bigger wire, so if necessary you can split the 1/0 into one 4ga and one 8ga.

 

[05gliguy 10+ year member]

or a 4 and an 8 will work too

Edit: You beat me to it spoon //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[EnvEe 02 10+ year member]

Yea, you can. I'd run two 4g wires personally though.

Thats what I planned on doing but then it turns out the 4g wont fit into one of my amps. WOuld it be bad to run one 4g and one 8g?

NVM just saw all the responses..Thanks alot guys!

 

[young_gun 10+ year member]

Yea like they said, you can run whatever you need.

 

[spoonraker 10+ year member]

As long as the total current carrying capacity of all of the wires outputted from the distro block is not greater than the current capacity of the input wire, you can do anything you want.

Examples...

1/0 in and two 8ga out is fine

1/0 in and twelve 22ga out is fine

1/0 in and one 4ga, four 22ga, and one 8ga out is fine

1/0 in and two 1/0 out is BAD

 

[gijoe 10+ year member]

Hey Spoon, I'm curious why 1/0 in and 2 1/0 out would be bad. I'm new and just learning, but i would think that having 2 1/0 out would be perfectly safe just not benificial. Can you help me understand?

 

[spoonraker 10+ year member]

Having a distro block with a higher current output than input is the same thing as just using too small of wire in general.

Like powering a 2000W amp with 12ga or something.

Sure it might not always cause damage, depending on how severe the difference is it might not even do much at all. But there is a number of things it could do.

Suppose you had one 1/0 in and two 1/0 gauge out, each hooked to a very powerful amplifier. When both of the amps simultaneously draw maximum current, all the of the power is expected to flow through the single wire. Assuming you fused properly not much should happen other than you blow a fuse and both amps turn off. You are ignorant so lets say you then put a fuse on the wire that passes twice the amount of current it should so that both amps could draw what they needed. Now you have a single 1/0 ga wire pushing double it's rated current carrying capacity through it. That causes the wire to heat up, melt the jacket, touch the bare metal chassis of the vehicle, and create a temporary welder before the fuse blows. Never a good thing...

Now obviously that's the worst case scenario, and the bigger the difference in wire sizes is the more severe the effect is, but it's never a good idea to do it.