Tom M'Guinn

I just watched a Tivo'd edition of Two Guys Garage. They were discussing engine harnesses and wiring in general -- good show. When it came to battery cables, Sam Memmolo says:

"Don't use welding wire or welding cable -- nice and soft and it bends good, but doesn't carry the current and doesn't have the right insulation on it. I promise you it's a source of problems."

My IceShark battery cables are clearly marked as welding cables. What do you think? Opinions?

F18Rep

Is there something that carries current better than small strand soft copper cable? Gold plated maybe? Bruce

theedge

They sound stupid.... What else should be used besides a very flexible cable of copper wire, that has a thick tough insulation that is rated to 150C for the good stuff?

Spidey944

PM user ID Robby. He knows as much as anyone on this topic.

F18Rep

Now see, thats just what I was thinking but I held off, trying to be open-minded and ready to learn. Lets not talk about rustoleum tho, I'm weak. Bruce

mtnman82

Doesn't carry the current??!!?? Soooo, arc-welding doesn't use much current?? Yea, doesn't sound right to me. You could test the welding cable with a auto load tester - hook the load tester to the battery through the cables and measure the voltage drop across the cable while performing the test. Then maybe repeat with standard jumper cables or the old harness to see if there is a difference. Unless the copper wire they use in welding cables is very sub-par, or the insulation is cheesy in some way, I can't see a problem.

Bri Bro

Sorry, totally disagree. I work building large cyclotrons and they use large magnets that carry large currents. We have and will be using large welding cables. I have seen cables that were installed 30 years ago still working fine. The larger magnets carry around 2,000 amps so they run lots of cables in parallel and the runs can be hundreds of feet long. These are high quality copper cables.

Maybe they got some inexpensive cable from China made from some cheap copper alloy. It is a simple test to determine the resistance vs length and that will determine the quality of the metal inside of the cable. With cable, you get what you pay for...copper gets expensive.

User 41221

"Doesn't carry current"?? WTF?! He obviously has zero clue how current propogates down a wire (it rides on the outside of the copper strands, the more strands means the greater surface area which equals greater ampacity). Dan and I had a couple of conversations about the design, trust me, you will not find a better cable to use.

As long as the welding cable is rated for the heat load and is oil/water resistant, it works much better than the OEM production cable.

Regards,

Tom M'Guinn

The part about not carrying current is hard to understand, although I suppose it is possible that welding cable insulation is not designed with under-hood heat in mind. Having said that, mine still look new after several years of use...

Acetylene

I can't imagine current capacity being the issue. Maybe its an insulation issue?

Techno Duck

I dont understand the current thing, that makes no sense at all too me. I do plenty of welding onboard ships and we are regularly using around 4-500amps (the general purpose welder on my ship has its own generator!) for stuff like welding new sections of deck plate in. Not to mention the welding equipment is hardmounted to the ship, all we need to do is run the stinger to the work area (everything is grounded). There are two pickup points outside of the welding room for stingers, one in the engine room and one on the aft end of the ship, so we regularly run over 400ft of welding wire if we are doing anything out on the bow.

As for the insulation, maybe its not designed for heat exposure (i really dont know) but the stuff is incredibly flexible (considering its thickness) and resilient. I dont really buy that because the stuff is designed to take sparks / slag ..etc falling onto it while your welding.

Spidey944

Two Guys Garage is really a show for people that don't know anything about cars, but want to be able to tell thier friends that they do.

Tom M'Guinn

Well, I found the mfg site for the wire, and this product flyer. It lists "battery cables" among the applications for this wire. It doesn't actually say "automotive" battery cables, but presume they would specify if auto battery cables were not endorsed.

http://www.copperfieldllc.com/pdf/WeldingCableFlyer.pdf

Tom M'Guinn

Well, I found the mfg site for the wire, and this product flyer. It lists "battery cables" among the applications for this wire. It doesn't actually say "automotive" battery cables, but presume they would specify if auto battery cables were not endorsed.

http://www.copperfieldllc.com/pdf/WeldingCableFlyer.pdf

theedge

If you look on the cable Dan used, its even rated to 150C which is plenty.