Not a bad price, but copper quality is questionable, April 12, 2010

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HMMWV “God, Country, Corps” (santa clara, CA USA) – See all my reviews

  

  

If Monster cable could only see the copper inside this jacket. Normally when you cut a piece of heavy cable in the center and strip back the insulation you see nice shiny copper. Allowed the ends might be oxidized a bit but they are open to the air – I cut this at the halfway point to make 2 shorter cable sets or 4 equal cable pieces. This cable, while being nice and flexible, looked like an old penny inside – heavily oxidized and unsightly as sin. I suspect its reclaimed copper 2 times over without proper slag removal. That is the only reason I took away one star.

Also the crimp lugs supplied leave a tad to be desired, but they include some properly sized red and black heatshrink. You are supposed to put the stripped cable into the lugs then fold each half over the other with “electricians pliers” – My professional crimper was able to fold them but not close them tight on the wire, so out came the persuader – a 16 oz claw hammer and some cement. Yep – that shut the crimp nice and snug on the wire. Now it has a good snug grip. I did purchase some professional #4 lugs at the hardware store made of copper like a shiny penny and my professional crimper did those justice, so their lugs are a tad sub par but you can put them on with just about anything. Alternately I could have hit it with a propane torch and fed some solder to it, which I might still do if there is excessive loss in the cable. I like soldered connections wherever possible.

I also bought some nice bolt on attachments at the hardware store for /pr that have a bar which snugs down with 2 ea 7/16 bolts and nuts on the back side. Now that was a solid connection – I drove the bolts home with my dewalt 3/8″ impact driver and a 7/16 socket which grabbed the wire and would not let go, then gave me a huge ring to tie to that did not look like someone pounded a crimp lug with a hammer on cement to make it grab!

I realize copper is costly these days but this stuff was recycled 2 or 3 times over. New copper wire shouldn’t look like a 1960′s penny under the couch. It sure makes monster cable’s oxygen free copper look bright and shiny by comparison. On the other hand, I did especially like the fact that the insulation is color coded properly, red and black. I have seen high current wiring kits where the wire’s insulation is entirely black, entirely white, or some other way of not coding the positive and negative by insulation color. Even the space shuttle wiring is ENTIRELY white no matter what purpose it serves. The only identification each white wire gets is a black wrapper with a 4 or 5 digit number that is referenced in the schematics. Nasa’s wire is also silver plated copper and thus carries the same current of cruddy copper wire 1 size more big with the same loss and less weight at 10x the price.

Other than the cruddy copper – it’s a good value – you are getting 20 feet of #4 cable with precrimped lugs on one end and trimmable to length on the other end with a set of lugs you can pound onto the wire. It certainly has the heft of 20 feet of #4 too – this shipped at over 5 lbs, most of which was the 2 pieces of #4 cable. It ran my inverter just fine so no harm.

You also get a green ground wire to tie your inverter chassis to whatever ground you have, be it in a automobile or a ground rod in the earth. Like me you probably do not think you need a ground for a battery powered device – when wwas the last time you grounded your remote control? In theory ground wires should cary no current nor any voltage, but the spinning fan on the inverter can cause static electricity. You do need to equalize any static charge buildup or leakage in capacitors, or alternately stray magnetic fields causing voltage in metalic parts. Sure these are small voltages, between 0.5 and 2.0 V but they can flip a logic say if not returned to ground and also making troubleshooting a nuisance. While not totally necessary, if you do not ground it be sure that somewhere from the output path of the inverter to your load you have a GFCI plug. That way if the current finds another path back to the battery or to the inverter chassis it will cut off power in a fraction of a second preventing electrocution – yours, not to mention damage to the equipment.

Keep in mind that #4 wire can carry 100′s of amps (approaching 1000 amps) and will do a nice job arc welding. Once you get this installed treat it with a great deal of respect. Do not be shocked (no pun intended) when you make the final connection if there is a SMALL arc – emphasis on SMALL – the reason is that there are capacitors in the inverters that help to smooth out the current flow and they charge instantly when power is applied. When finished, disconnect from the battery. Use some extra caution when using tools like crecent wrenches around deep cycle batteries = do not bridge to the other terminal. I had an electrician drop a crescent wrench…

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 Comments (6)

quality !, March 23, 2009

Great cables and a very good price. more than I need in lenght but thats ok . well made and are copper. much cheaper that bulk + ends. great deal!

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Good quality cables, May 4, 2010

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M. Skyles “Skybuck” (Ellensburg, WA USA) – See all my reviews

  

Good quality cables, I bought them for the cobra 1500 watt DC power inverter. the cables where a bit long for what I needed them for but I could always use the rest for other projects. They do not come with the 30 amp fuse though as recommended in the instructions. You do not really need the high amp fuse unless your using the DC power inverter and cables for an appliance that draws big amps like an air conditioner or massive home appliance in that case you should use a high amp fuse or your cables and power inverter might over heat and catching fire. I use my Cobra DC power inverter for my 1000 watt coffee pot and power tools like a drill and saw when I am repairing or building a board fence in the pasture. The Cobra 1500 watt power inverter and cables work well for my needs, plenty of amps without heating up. I have a diesel 2500 Ram pick up and realized that the the engine compartment was limited on space to install the power inverter. If you have this problem you could do what I did, I cut a 2×6 board in the length of the passenger side battery and cut a groove in the middle of the board to run the batteries mounting screw though, it held the board tightly in place. I than bolted the power inverter to the board. Note: you have to mount the inverter to the board before you install it. So the inverter sits bolted to the side of the battery on a board facing up. The shorter you make the power cable the superior your power inverter will perform. I used less than a foot of cable and I do not see it interfering with the battery in anyway. It works for me.

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