Wire gauge comparison

 

Gold Member
Username: Southernrebel

Monroe, Louisiana Team Audible...

Post Number: 7788
Registered: Mar-04
Well, I have yet to see anyone do this so I am going to try my hand at it.

Everyone talks about wire size and how this and that wire is crap. But, just how worthless are those BS brands?

Today I took scraps from quite a few brands and did a little comparison. 6inches of each brand and weighed the amount of wire per section.

***I am not sure if all the brands are Oxygen Free Copper***
Some may be steel, CCA or other. Some brands were tinned (as you can see in pics). I had no way to test copper purity, this is simply measuring mass of the 'stuff' under the casing.

This should give a little idea of just how much you are getting per foot. In the charts, I converted mass per 6inches to mass per foot.

Here are the brands I tested:

4ga
AudioPipe
Stinger HPM
Hooker WG4
Qpower
Scosche
Xscorpion
Scosche (6ga)

8ga
Xscorpion
Scosche EFX2
Pheonix Gold Inner Flow (7ga)
Old yellow color Scosche
AudioPipe
Stinger Custom Pro
American Accessory

So...on with the pics!

Upload
6" of each 4ga wire, list above is in order top to bottom.

Upload
Cross section of 4ga wire, listed right to left

Upload
Wires split and copper pulled out of casing.

Upload
This is the scale used. It is calibrated to Pennyweight (dwt, used for measuring gold weight at the shop), I converted to grams for the charts.
 

Gold Member
Username: Southernrebel

Monroe, Louisiana Team Audible...

Post Number: 7789
Registered: Mar-04
8ga wire.

Upload
6" of each wire. List in the first post top to bottom

Upload
Cross section, listed right to left.

Upload
Upload
Bunch of scraps.
 

Gold Member
Username: Southernrebel

Monroe, Louisiana Team Audible...

Post Number: 7790
Registered: Mar-04
Wire masses

Upload


Charts

Upload
Upload


Take this as you will. I would love to know the copper purity in these wires.

The Qpower wire #'s where pretty much what I expected. Less than half of the other wire's average size. The Scosche wire really surprised me though.
 

Platinum Member
Username: Rovin

1 15 = 152.5 DBs ...Trinidad & T...

Post Number: 15659
Registered: Jul-05
nice test


i know 0g is expensive to be playing around with but if u can it wud be great ...
 

Gold Member
Username: Frkkevin

Team DLSSuperNatural...

Post Number: 7509
Registered: Nov-05
there any way to bench test a wire? i mean there has to be a way :-)
 

Diamond Member
Username: Wingmanalive

Www.stainles... .ecrater.com

Post Number: 21631
Registered: Jun-06
I would say to bench test it you would just need to apply a small current and measure the resistance, no? 6" lengths I would think would be an unfair measure seeing as the resistance would be compounded by actual length but still, any difference is still a measure. Since the strand count improves the flow I would assume that would play a roll, as well as other factors.
 

Gold Member
Username: Van_man

Boston South, MA

Post Number: 5072
Registered: Mar-06
Wow, Nice data.
I loled at the graphs...Great fortiude.
I would be willing to paypal towards some 0 testing.
I could sponser a foot.
 

Gold Member
Username: Southernrebel

Monroe, Louisiana Team Audible...

Post Number: 7791
Registered: Mar-04
A 1/0ga test would be great!
I just had ALOT of scrap 8ga and 4ga at the shop and did this one.

So, how about this. Lets compile a list of 1/0 wire. If anyone has some scrap, lets say at least 1.25 to 1.5ft, so I can cut them down to 1ft. I would be more than willing to test it. I would rather not have people buy wire, just whatever you have as scrap...but if you wanna buy some and ship it to me, thats fine too.

Now, you realize that this is not a highly accurate test. The best way I can think of to accurately test would be to take ~100ft of a given wire and run current though it. Test loss from end to end. Also test resistance.

But, OFC vs OFC...my test at least give an idea as to just how much copper you are getting for your $.

Email me at Audible.insanity@gmail.com if you have some scrap 1/0 you would like to contribute.
 

Silver Member
Username: Domenico

Glendale, AZ USA

Post Number: 177
Registered: Apr-09
So 4ga Scosche isn't THAT bad?
 

Platinum Member
Username: Insearchofbass

York, Pennsylvania

Post Number: 12879
Registered: Jun-04
Nice thanks for doing the test
 

Gold Member
Username: Southernrebel

Monroe, Louisiana Team Audible...

Post Number: 7792
Registered: Mar-04

quote:

So 4ga Scosche isn't THAT bad?




I'm not to sure, not even that sure its really copper.

The stuff I had was pretty old, and its was the EFX2 purple casing stuff. Haven't seen it around in awhile.
 

Platinum Member
Username: Nd4spd18

Philadelphia, PA

Post Number: 10768
Registered: Jul-06
Your work is always interesting canann...

Give me your address I'll send you a sample of Hugfen 0 gauge 100% copper, what I've been using.
 

Gold Member
Username: Southernrebel

Monroe, Louisiana Team Audible...

Post Number: 7795
Registered: Mar-04
Hit me w/ an email.
audible.insanity@gmail.com



What really drove me to do this test is that the last order few orders I made w/ Xscorpion, it seemed like the 4ga was getting smaller. I had to check. As I expected, it was pretty small...I have yet to run into a problem w/ it though on 1200w or so systems. Did a DDm1a's w/ it and no problems....the 1/0 has always been pretty beafy though. I have a hard time getting it into my IA 20.1, DDZ2Hv and Cory's M3's. Everything else the company makes is great, had no problems anywhere with them, awesome dealer support and shipping shipping prices w/ big orders.

The real test would be resistance over a 1000ft strand, but I doubt anyone would be willing to send me that much 1/0 for testing...lol
 

Platinum Member
Username: Rovin

1 15 = 152.5 DBs ...Trinidad & T...

Post Number: 15660
Registered: Jul-05
but most installs wud use about 20ft for the most right ? - so id say that wud be a suitable real world test


i doubt ppl wud even send u a 20ft piece 4 free ....
 

Gold Member
Username: Ducka

Shelby Twp., MI United States

Post Number: 1313
Registered: Jan-08
I would love to see a 1/0 test. Definitely have to test knukonceptz. I will even send it if I have extras after I do the big3.
 

Gold Member
Username: Philly306

If youre going to give...

Post Number: 1483
Registered: Apr-07
even with a 1/0 test it wouldn't do much good. This is a cool test but won't tell you anything other that which wire wieghs more. Canaan said it himself this is just a test of mass.
say you have type A wire that is CCA and weighs X amount
Then you have type B wire that is 100% copper but weighs a small amount less than type A.
BUT type B wire has a larger current carrying capacity.
A load test would be a better idea.

Its nice to see someone doing some unbias testing though.
« Previous Thread Next Thread »



Main Forums

Today's Posts

Forum Help

Follow Us