Home Depot 3/0 wire, YAY OR NAY??!??!

[DNick454 10+ year member]

local car audio ship claims that the 19 thik strand 3/0awg wire at home depot will not carry as much current and that any kind of engine oil will eat through it's coating.....of course they could just trying to sell me thier, and i quote, "mercedez benz of wire" kicker 1/0 for 6 bucks a foot......i haggledem down to 4 buks a foot...still feel like i got *****.....anyway.... i have this 3/0 done for my big 3
......can't i just put a protector thigns around the wire.....and is the gauge is around the same size.

.....this is just 19 thick *** strands as opposed to like 4700+ strands...... is AC power wire so differant it wont do as good a job?, the thickness overall is **** near the same

Electric current runs out the outer edges of an electrical wire. More strands = better because it has more surface area than one solid strand. Sadly enough, the kicker wire IS better. However, you can find kicker 1/0 hyperflex on ebay for dirt cheap, can't believe you went to a shop and bought it.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Electric current runs out the outer edges of an electrical wire. More strands = better because it has more surface area than one solid strand. Sadly enough, the kicker wire IS better. However, you can find kicker 1/0 hyperflex on ebay for dirt cheap, can't believe you went to a shop and bought it.

False.

At DC and low frequencies the current passes through the entire core of the wire. It's not until higher frequencies (typically outside of the audible bandwidth) that skin effect begins to play any significant role.

 

[shellfish 10+ year member]

Dealers are not trying to rip people off, we are just trying to keep our doors open. You must realize that most equipment online is sold at or below dealer. How are we suppossed to compete with that and still look good to you guys. It is very frustrating.

Maybe shops in your area, east bay shops that I've dealt with don't even

look at me twice because i don't look rich. Little do they know that that

broken *** Saturn in the lot, has more in the trunk then the car is worth.

And we don't have competitions around here anyway because the shops

are too busy counting money and selling tremendously over priced products

to fat rich kids driving their dads cadillac.

 

[DNick454 10+ year member]

False.
At DC and low frequencies the current passes through the entire core of the wire. It's not until higher frequencies (typically outside of the audible bandwidth) that skin effect begins to play any significant role.

Hmm, you learn something new each day //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

Anyways, to be honest though, I would still prefer the kicker 1/0 over the other stuff because more strands would have a better contact between the terminals once you crimp them and a better connection to the amp when you screw it down, ontop of that, it's much better looking, more flexible, and a hell of a lot easier to route through the car.

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

Squeak is not entirely correct, but he's talking about true skin effect. There is a saturation frequency chart here that states the frequency for a cylinder of a cross section of x. It isn't near inaudible until 18AWG.

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

local car audio ship claims that the 19 thik strand 3/0awg wire at home depot will not carry as much current and that any kind of engine oil will eat through it's coating.....of course they could just trying to sell me thier, and i quote, "mercedez benz of wire" kicker 1/0 for 6 bucks a foot......i haggledem down to 4 buks a foot...still feel like i got *****.....anyway.... i have this 3/0 done for my big 3
......can't i just put a protector thigns around the wire.....and is the gauge is around the same size.

.....this is just 19 thick *** strands as opposed to like 4700+ strands...... is AC power wire so differant it wont do as good a job?, the thickness overall is **** near the same

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/bsflag.gif.21f42eccd34b7d1eb1608fb1b59b69c3.gif

They're yanking on your wallet, and is a total load of BS. You're better off with larger strands when it comes down to heating and dissipation. I use 4/0 copper house service drop wire. It's pretty much near a solid bar of copper.

Gah, I hate car audio shops that do this, though I work for one to repair some of their blown amps...