Battery cable size

Bkfiremedic

Going to upgrade my battery cables and all my other cable on my Ezgo TXT. I'm going with 2 gauge welding cable. My question is do I buy #2 or 2/0? Thanks

BGW

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JohnnieB

#2 is probably AWG 2Ga.

2/0 is AWG 00Ga, which is three steps thicker.

scottyb

2/0 is what is hung between the power poles in front of your house. It's way too big - 2g is all you need

Bkfiremedic

Thanks Scotty, I was trying to find the strand count for the #2 and 2/0 that the guy at the welding shop sad he had and couldn't find it. But I finally found the spec sheet. Didn't realize the 2/0 is like 1200 strand and the #2 is 624

leapingbuddha

2/0 is what I have on my cart. I know this is huge, but I had these in my solar box of cables. I think it actually goes faster? signed no speedometer

JohnnieB

If the cables that were replaced were in really bad shape electrically, you would have gotten an increase in top speed. How much of an increase depends on how bad the original cables were.

A series cart's DC motor's max RPM is determined by the voltage applied to it and at max RPM, a DC cart motor will only draw about 75A (or less), and difference in the voltage drop between a good set of 6Ga cables and a good set of 00Ga (2/0 Ga) cables is only about 0.6V with 75A of current flowing through about 25' of high current cables, so the speed increase won't be much.

On the other hand, when accelerating from a standstill, a series motor is capable of drawing about 500A for several yards off the starting line and there is difference of about 2.7HP (1,982 Watts) between 6Ga and 00Ga.

Clemsoncartguy

Yall are some electrical freaks here!!

I mean what kind of person knows that?? That's why I am glad I found This place to help customize my cart!!!

RAKA97

The "TIN FOIL" hat man of course...lol

cgtech

Even with BIG conrollers for carts (800A controllers), 2ga cables are good enough as far as i have seen. As long as all the other parts are also up to the job. JohnnyB will show how that lost XXX number of watts in the cables (he is an efficiency nut, me too, but not as bad). Bigger cables are better, as long as you are not running deficient parts elsewhere in that loop (wussy stock solenoid, ect). Adding only some better parts will "find" the next weakest part left in the system.

JohnnieB

CG hit the nail on the head.

It is a total system concept, but it boils down to: How much good is good enough?

2Ga is good enough for most golf cart applications.