10 AWG THHN Wire on Clearance at Lowe’s

[jd1923]

Those of you who work mods as often as I do may want to take advantage of this sale! I need 15+ ft of two colors to install a rear solar port. Bought 50 ft each color to have extra on hand at this price. Lowes has been clearing out bulk stock to sell pre-packages rolls. Only the white and green is at this price. Black is more $, red not available. I will use white for B+ and green for B-. I’m working now on a project, moving all DC buses, switches, breakers and fuses out from under the street-side bed to access under dinette seat instead. More on that later. Inflation fighter if you need any wire!

[theOrca]

If you want real "sticker shock," price Anchor wiring at West Marine! To give due credit though, Anchor wire has at least 3 times the number of tinned strands of any other brand of wire of equal size. There is just no good substitute for Anchor wire if making battery terminals, but the moaning of your checkbook can be off-putting.

[jd1923]

I'd rather notch up the AWG, need 12 buy 10, as this old mechanic is not spending ridiculous $$$$ for pure copper wire that is more waterproof or advertises nano-ohms less resistance. Marketing hype is the tedium of world we live today, OMG. Save your money, unless you care less and have money to burn (not me).

BTW, the Southwire brand, Made-in-USA is pure copper, spec'd for residential/ commercial/industrial code. OTT installs marine grade cable in some places (not when using basic 14/2 rolex to feed the A/C, our most demanding 120 VAC appliance where they really should do better).

I just installed a Victron 3KVA MP@ inverter and I could have replaced what Oliver had, 10/2 multi-stranded marine grade cable. I could have spent more money to buy the same. Hey, I'm not pulling my Oliver through salt water!

Instead, I had over 100' of 10/2 UF-B, from a past project, which is direct burial cable (yes, waterproof) and I used this instead. It has say 40 stands, instead of 100s, who cares! I used the same cable type but 8/3 to wire my shed, 125 ft from our home electrical panel and it connects to the 30A RV outlet and wires to other 20A circuits for running lights and power tools, good enough, with spec.

[jd1923]

Correction: the 10/2 UF-B mentioned above is solid core wire. Residential and commercial wiring when 14, 12 or 10 AWG is generally solid core. The 10 AWG THHN wire shown above is stranded, the 6 AWG cable OTT uses to power the 12V panel is stranded, and the 8/3 AWG I used as an underground feed to our shed is too, like I wrote before about 40 strands, not 100s.

The 4/0 welding cable we use to wire the batteries to the inverter is the kind with 100s of strands. This is for the fact a 3KW inverter can pull up to 250A continuous on 12VDC, and more on a surge. This only place where we need this quality wire.

Marine use is a different environment, even though we think of our Oliver hulls in that way at times. Our Oliver bottom hull below the basement is dry as a bone! But some of you in humid climates may get some condensation there.

 

[katanapilot]

Although UF cable is probably fine to use here (and I have a bunch of it leftover from a former building project), the solid core wire is not at all flexible.  I'm in the middle of the Victron upgrade right now and will either use SJOOW cord or the marine grade cable similar to what Oliver used originally - simply for the ease of installation.

[mossemi]

1 hour ago, katanapilot said:

simply for the ease of installation

That makes sense to me especially when working below decks.
 

Mossey

[jd1923]

Finished my MP2 upgrade. I used the 10/2 UF-B I had vs. spending more money. Nothing wrong with using this or buying more expensive stranded cable.

I only needed two short runs. One to the inverter from the EMS and one from the inverter to the 120VAC panel. It is a straight shot through a very wide opening in the basement. I cut both lengths about a foot longer than needed so they lay nicely on the floor of the basement. It is waterproof cable and 10/2 provides adequate ampacity.

OTT does use superior cable to the batteries, where you truly need it, and for the shore power receptacle connections. Everywhere else for AC circuits OTT uses 14/2 Romex and the UF-B is an upgrade from that.

[Ronbrink]

15 hours ago, jd1923 said:

Everywhere else for AC circuits OTT uses 14/2 Romex

Not sure of the year model when OTT changed from 14/2 to 12/2 Romex, as installed in my 2020 OLEll. 

[jd1923]

8 hours ago, Ronbrink said:

Not sure of the year model when OTT changed from 14/2 to 12/2 Romex, as installed in my 2020 OLEll. 

In residential wiring 14/2 Romex is used for 110V outlets, or 14/3 for light switches, all 15A circuits. For commercial where 20A outlets are standard they use 12/2 Romex. Commercial will also use stranded 10 and 12 AWG THHN wire where conduit is run.

Our Oliver #113 has 12/2 Romex (yellow jacketed) for the A/C and HWH circuits. Everywhere else 14/2 (white jacketed) is used which is fine for the GFCI 110 outlets, but they also use it for the microwave, and the fridge too, where they really should have gone 12/2.

In fact, if you look closely at the picture showing the breaker panel, our fridge is marked as a 20A breaker but instead they installed a 15A breaker with 14/2 Romex. You will see the HWH breaker is tripped, so I can turn it on/off from the panel instead of opening the exterior HWH cover for that switch.

Ron, it's great that yours has all 12/2. I would not mind at all if they used 14/3 for 110V outlets, but all appliances, microwave and fridge should sit on 20A breakers with 12/2 AWG wiring.

On our hull they also wired the microwave and the 110V outlets to the same 15A breaker. I was able to find the individual 14/2 Romex run for the microwave, and it is now wired to the breaker that was the PD converter that is no longer in use with the Victron MP2 inverter/charger.

In the first picture you can also see the house 120VAC wiring where I used 10/2 UF-B. I wired this to the MP2 when it was sitting on the bed platform and because the UF-B is relatively stiff it fed nicely across the basement floor as I lowered the MP2 in place.

@katanapilot given you are using fine-stranded 10/2 cable, you should certainly wire it first before your mechanical installation and you must use wire FERRULES so that the wire can be pushed into the MP2 AC terminals. The ferrules will be large and not real easy to insert. The thinner solid core wire pushed in nicely.

Edited August 24 by jd1923

[jd1923]

Check out this video re the need for wire ferrules on the MP2.

 

[Ronbrink]

@jd1923 I recently used AWG 6 ferrules when installing the Victron 30A charger in my Oliver, very handy tool and end terminals to have!

[katanapilot]

Appreciate the tip on the use of ferrules for stranded wire. Planning to do that on my MP2 install.

Our 2020 E II (Hull 628) also has 12/2 romex throughout and 20 amp circuit breakers.  As an aside - the National Electric Code allows 15 amp receptacles on 20 amp circuits provided there is more than a single 15 amp receptacle.  Our Ollie’s have 15 amp receptacles on a 20 amp circuit as an example. 
 

 

[jd1923]

11 hours ago, katanapilot said:

Our 2020 E II (Hull 628) also has 12/2 romex throughout and 20 amp circuit breakers.

So, 2020 models, hulls 579 and 628 have all 12/2 Romex for AC circuits, and you can see from my pic that our older 2016 hull 113 does not.

We run a few appliances on the 110V outlets (never at the same time), An 1100W tea kettle, a 700W small pressure cooker, and the worst culprit Chris' 1875 Conair blow dryer. From what I can tell, you can't find a blow dryer at lower wattage.

Ran this test and been running the A/C this weekend on the MP2. It handles the Air or the blow dryer no problem. Believe it or not, they blow dryer takes 5A/60W more than the Dometic Penguin II 13.5K BTU A/C. But you only use a blow dryer for a few minutes on and off.

We replaced our OEM microwave with an Emeril Air Fryer. The small model rated at 1500W. I ran it yesterday on the MP2. Set it at 400F for 15 minutes in air fry mode. It used 23AH according to the Victron SmartShunt, brought the 600AH Epoch LiFePO4 batteries from 99% to 95%. Got to love that! Cook our morning hashbrown cakes, cook a pizza, while boondocking np.

Since the microwave circuit is now on its own breaker that helps but still it's on 14/2 Romex. After 15 minutes on 400F the Romex was to the touch the same room temp as the other feeds, so 14 AWG looks to be doing it. My insulated oven cabinet stayed cool enough as well, only the aluminum of the upper bezel got a little hot but nowhere else. 

Edited August 25 by jd1923

[MAX Burner]

14 hours ago, jd1923 said:

Set it at 400F for 15 minutes in air fry mode. It used 23AH according to the Victron SmartShunt, brought the 600AH Epoch LiFePO4 batteries from 99% to 95%. Got to love that! Cook our morning hashbrown cakes, cook a pizza, while boondocking np.

Awesome report, JD!  Very much looking forward to our 2000w inverter going Tango Uniform so we can upgrade to the MP II!

[jd1923]

3 hours ago, MAX Burner said:

Awesome report, JD!  Very much looking forward to our 2000w inverter going Tango Uniform so we can upgrade to the MP II!

Art, does your hull # 226 have all 12/2 Romex for AC circuits, or like mine with mostly 14/2?

Edited August 26 by jd1923

[MAX Burner]

Sorry for the delayed response @jd1923 - just now saw this...  Our's is like yours - mostly 14/2...  Probably a combo because of what was in stock at the time - but who knows?