what’s better, copper clad alum or ofc

Any differences in running 8 guage copper clad aluminum vs OFC.

copper vs aluminum... when you are talking about 8 gauge it doesnt really make that much of a difference, the copper can carry a little bit more current without heating up as much. i personally dont like using aluminum wire and if i did use id oversize it just to make up the difference on capacity

Thanks! Btw is a 60 amp fuse good enough for the pdx-v9?

no a 60amp fuse is not good enough, that amp has 80 amps worth of fuses. so going back to your original post, 8 gauge wire of any type isnt good enough. you really need a good 4 gauge copper wire to safely supply that amp if that is what you will be using.

Oh thanks! I didn't know. That's the amp I will be using. It's hard to find a 4 gauge amp kit.with 80 amp fuse. Any suggestion?

I found a stinger 4 gauge amp kit with 150 amp fuse on Amazon. Is that ok?

Here's the scenario's I've had before and have never had any issues.

If I have an amp that has 40A of fusing in the amplifier I use a 4 gauge OFC kit and if it contains a 150A fuse at the battery I leave it as is and wire it all up. After all this kit with the fuse should be properly designed together and not cause issues.

If I have a problem with easily accessing the amplifier's 40A fuse I have replaced them with a 50A fuse BUT I MUST replace the 150A fuse at the battery with a 40A fuse to retain this original fusing size for the amplifier.

If I have a 4 gauge OFC power wire and at the battery have a 150A fuse I may only put in one amplifier like yours with the 40A fuse but if later I decide to add a second amplifier I can split the 4 gauge wire by the original first amplifier using a distribution block and then run either a short 4 gauge wire to the first amplifier or change it to an 8 gauge and then run either a short 4 gauge or 8 gauge to the new second amplifier BUT it must have it's own internal fusing AND the fusing of this second amplifier cannot exceed 110A. If I can I try and use a distribution block with a 4 gauge in and two four gauge outs and also try and match up the wire size to the terminal size on the amplifiers.

I'm old school and just prefer the OFC over CCA wire.

Jim

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1968 Chevy II Nova Garage Find 2012
1973 Nova Custom
1974 Spirit of America Nova
1973 Nova Pro-Street

custom jim made some good points but ill add to them:

1. even though the 4 gauge kit comes with a built in 150A fuse i would not chose to max out the amperage load. if my amps come close to 150A then i would go a size bigger on the main run and then split it out with a distribution block. this isnt a problem you will have with your current setup but im really writing that for anyone ales that might read this.

2. the other major pitfall of buying wire is not all wire is made equal. there are companies that will advertise that their wire is of a certain gauge but the actual wire inside will be smaller then spec. this can create a saftey issue when you are trusting your wire to handle a certain amount of current. so really the best way to tell a good kit from the bad is price. your stinger kit should be a good kit but you will find other brand kits that are much cheaper and its cheaper for a reason.

soundnsecurity, back when I was doing a lot of car audio I was buying 4 gauge and other sizes in bulk and I was also buying fuse holders, fuses, and other things to pretty much make up my own kit.
I agree it would be nice in the above system with a 40A fuse on the amps to change out the 150A in the kit to be at the battery to something like a 60A but it's in the kit. When I was putting my own kits together I had the flexibility to where if an amp had 100A fuse on it, I would normally use a 120A under the hood on a 4 gauge OFC wire.

And you probably know this, but what I could not do, or wanted to, was to have a 40A on the amp and then run a 40A under the hood.

I also tried to limit myself to an underhood fuse size of 30A max on a 10 gauge, 60A max on an 8 gauge, and 150 on a 4 gauge with OFC wire.

Jim

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1968 Chevy II Nova Garage Find 2012
1973 Nova Custom
1974 Spirit of America Nova
1973 Nova Pro-Street

just to make myself clear, i wasnt talking about maxing out the capacity of the fuse, i was talking more about maxing out the wire. if a 4 gauge wire is rated for a maximum of 150 amps and you have a 150A fuse then its possible that your amplifiers could pull a little more than that and mot blow the fuse. this is the same way that an AGU glass fuse can fail without blowing because you are pulling just enough current to heat up the fuse and melt the solder without blowing the fuse in te middle where its supposed to blow apart. usually in an AGU fuse if this happens it will probably start to melt the fuse holder and maybe the wire around it.

if you are using an ANL type fuse then a lot of the time they dont blow immediately at 151A, it will take a good bit more to blow it instantly, so by letting in a bit more current than the wire is rated to handle then over time if someone really drives their system hard all of the time it could cause the wire to melt or cause heat to build up in your hardware if there is any kind of extra resistance in those connections.

im not saying that this happens all of the time but i do see occasionally burned wire where the fuse should have blown but didnt and once the wire starts to melt it only gets worse over time.

i oversize my wire out of an abundance of caution because you definitely dont want to be responsible for burning someones car.

So then what is the best fuse rating I should put in there?

If I had the 4 gauge OFC kit and the amp you have now has a 40A fuse, then I would put a 60A under the hood by the battery.
If later you replace that amplifier with the 40A fuse with an amplifier that draws 100A, then keep the original 150A fuse and put that in place of the 60A later.

Jim

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1968 Chevy II Nova Garage Find 2012
1973 Nova Custom
1974 Spirit of America Nova
1973 Nova Pro-Street

custom jim, the amp he is wanting has 2x 40A fuses, 80 amps worth of fuses. if it were just 40A than an 8 gauge would be just fine.

there really is no specific answer. the main under hood fuse is only there to protect the wire itself incase something happens to the wire that cuts into it and causes a short. you will be good with a fuse that is bigger than 80A and smaller than 150A which is the maximum of that 4 gauge wire. the fuses on the amp are there to protect the amp. thats how a system is usually designed to work. but there is nothing wrong with using a smaller fuse, to me that is the same as over sizing the wire. i just wanted to explain why this system works so you can make your own judgements as your system might change.

This amp has two 40 amp fuses? So what I should put near the battery?

flm09] wrote:

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This amp has two 40 amp fuses? So what I should put near the battery?

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saw the mistake as i was editing my last post. yea you need to use anything from an 80A fuse to a 150A fuse. those are your limitations. if you read my last post it explains why. although if your requirements are only 80A then i would go with a 100A because it keeps the amp from blowing the expensive main fuse and also still protects the wire.

Cool! Thanks for both your advice!