Off-grid Solar Buyer's Guide: DC Wire and Connectors

so we really need to talk about wire and wire connectors because nowadays on the internet a lot of people are getting away with selling cheap wire and cheap connectors and the reason this is so bad is because if you have a single bad wire or connector in your system you can potentially cause a fire and burn down your whole house or your AR of your van or wherever your solar power system is located in over the years I have recommended people by specific wires through my website I say buy this don't think about it don't look at any other options 90% of the market is trash just buy this wire it's safety certified ul listed but I want people to know why I recommend these types of wire and why the cheap ones fail so first we're gonna start with the most common problems that I see and then we will dive deeper into the details so let's get started so first let's talk about copper clad aluminum this is aluminum wire that is covered in copper and this is the worst stuff that you can possibly use and it is all over Amazon here is another example of copper clad aluminum it will even say on the listing on Amazon that it's copper and as you can see it actually looks like copper but this is aluminum wire and if you connect the large inverters to this you will have problems this is the number one cause of problems when connecting inverters because many cheap inverters come with this wire and when you try to push large loads through this it just simply does not work because aluminum cannot carry the same amount of amps as pure copper and when people size their system with copper wire gauges off of the internet and then they use an aluminum conductor guess what they do not size it properly technically you can use aluminum wire but you would have to size it perfectly in a lot of people when browsing the internet using wire gauge charts will not size it properly with aluminum now let's talk about why aluminum is so bad besides just not sizing it correctly first of all when you connect aluminum wire to a copper lug guess what aluminum and copper expand and contract at different rates or a different the aluminum will expand and contract more than the copper and guess what these wires do they get hot and they get cold when you push large loads through them so when you have aluminum expand and contracting in a cold weld and it's surrounded by a copper lug it will break free over time the next problem I've noticed is that when you use aluminum with other types of metals you will have faster rates of corrosion and sometimes when I have a copper lug and I'm passing through it and there is lots of moisture around I get lots of corrosion no matter what I try to do I've had wires heat up and fail because they were just aluminum and then I open it up there's corrosion all over the whole thing so for me I just avoid it it's just not something you should touch at all but this stuff is all over Amazon you can find these wires and people will be like oh 4 gauge wire for 20 bucks for this many feet that's crazy and they buy it and this is not what you should be using this can and will cause a fire if you use it every point of contact with every connector that's copper is going to be a potential fault point so do not use this this is one of the most common issues that I see in people will have an inverter shutdown issues and all sorts of other weird problems so just avoid copper clad aluminum you can always find on the Amazon listing where it says that it will either say pure copper or it will say oxygen free copper or 99.9 percent copper or it will say copper clad aluminum CCA so avoid this stuff like the plague and before we move on to the other types of wire I want to talk about another safety issue that we need to mention in the beginning of the video because some people are not going to watch this whole video and that is cheap connectors all right these were bought off of Alibaba straight from China if you look inside it is the cheapest and smallest amount of copper that you could ever imagine do you see how much copper you get that is pitiful these are not ul listed these are not safety rated these are junk and you do not want to buy these from China and to make this example as clear as possible this is the cheap one look how small the walls are and this is the expensive ul listed beautiful connector with copper okay this is what you want this is what you don't want but the big problem when choosing these connectors off of like Amazon or Ebay is they do not show how thick the walls are it is so hard to tell in those pictures so typically what I like to do is I like to go to Lowe's or Home Depot and they will have ul listed safety certified connectors with nice thick copper walls and I think the best way that you can tell is that if you take your crimper and you go to crimp it a cheap one will feel pathetic it just squeezes instantly and it feels like there's nothing there it is instantly crimpable and this is not a solid like this feels like nothing but when you have a high quality one in you crimp it you actually have to put some force and you feel it squeeze and mash and it takes some effort to actually crimp the high quality ones and if you use a single cheap connector in your system I actually bought these off of Alibaba thinking that they were gonna be high quality but they were a complete junk and I kept them just for this video and also you will find cheap ones at Harbor Freight or Walmart so you need to avoid those like the plague you really need to look inside and see inside the box see how thick those walls are you will instantly find which ones are high quality or not based off of that now let's talk about lugs so this is a high quality lug that's made out of pure copper and it's very very thick this is very nice this is for four gauge wire and it's a beautiful lug this is not this is common off of Amazon and the wall thickness is just pitiful on this one if you match this down it looks like it got squeezed in half when you match this one down it looks like a solid crimp and let me show you an example of that and this is a good example of a chi plug connected to a high-quality marine grade wire do you see how this crimp looks this is not what your crimps should look like there is not much metal in the walls and it has just smashed the whole thing and it looks like junk this technically will work and this is copper on copper but this is not ideal and this is a high-quality lug with high quality wire it just looks and feels different and it is very very wrong you cannot mess this up the walls are very thick and there is a true cold weld inside if you cut this apart with the hacksaw you will see a true cold weld and this will last for a decade this is very solid so by the high quality copper ones and avoid the cheap copper ones even though these are copper they are too thin to be used now that we've covered copper clad aluminum and cheap connectors we can finally move on to what kind of wire you should buy so first off you need pure copper always and you need pure copper lugs a copper to copper connection with a true cold weld with the crimp is the most ideal way to do it and this is a high quality inverter cable this is a two odd gauge wire and this is crimped properly and it has heat shrink this will last for years in years all of the metals in here are not dissimilar you have a mechanical connection with the crimp and so this will expand and contract together over time and this heat shrink will protect the joint but it is a gas tight joint because it is a crimp so this is what you want copper with copper and then a safety rated or certified insulation and this is a very high quality and very expensive cable this is like the best stuff on the plane you can just feel how that pure copper feels you have lots of strands so you can carry a lot of current like this is the best of the best but when you're building your system the most common copper wire that you will use for connecting inverters or solar charge controllers in what you should use 99% of the time is pure copper welding cable and this installation is nice and thick it's what I recommend on my website for years and years now and this is a very high quality wire and what I love about copper welding cable is that it's easy to cut strip and crimp so cutting it feels really good and when you use a stripper like this one right here you will feel it as you turn hit the paper wrap that covers the strands so after I hear and feel it hit those pieces of paper I can rip it off and I know that none of these strands were damaged and I can do a perfect crimp with every strand so very easy to work with very easy to crimp like this is made to last very very long this is good stuff it most off grid solar suppliers will sell this high-quality welding cable and when you have a high quality cable and you want to connect it to a high quality lug you need to ensure that you're using the proper size wire for the lug and for your specified application so if you have a short circuit or you have an overload situation this wire and this connector will be able to carry the amount of current required for your system for your specified application so when you slip it over it do you see how perfect that looks and when you crimp this wire it comes out looking great this is a perfect crimp these two are connected mechanically and it's a gas tight joint this will last forever and will never cause a safety issue and something that I see people suggest with crimping is to use like no locks inside of this joint that is not true you do not need no locks in a mechanical gas tight joint you do need heat shrink to cover this and to protect this wire from flexing and causing lateral forces at the joint itself but there is no point in putting anything in here it should be copper to copper and it should be dry if you learn about cold welding and physics you will understand why but if you're doing house wiring or a marine application wiring and you have a joint that you have to screw down like a terminal you absolutely need to use no locks or some kind of anti corrosion or corrosion inhibitor but for this absolutely not copper to copper and then cover it with either marine grade heat shrink if you're messing with water or something else that's rated for your specified application and you have a high quality connection you can cut this apart and see a true cold welt that is so important so we went on a bit of a tangent but this is high-quality welding cable but this is for indoor use only if you are doing anything outside or around water or salt water or oil you need a different kind of wire that is safety certified to handle that so we have an example of ringg grain tinned copper when you have a high quality marine grade wire it will actually tell you on here we have anchor marine grade six gauge ul listed wire bow cable the voltage rating and all sorts of other stats of what it can handle environment wise this is a little hard to work with but it will handle everything if you match this with a pure copper lug it's ten and you put heat shrink over that it will handle water salt all sorts of crazy stuff high quality stuff very expensive and you can use marine grade wire for pretty much any part of your solar power system if you can afford it and in this video so far we've talked about large thick copper wires for connecting primary components such as inverters and solar charge controllers but now we need to talk about smaller wires because you can only buy this down to like a six or an eight gauge size but if you want 10 or 12 gauge and you want to use typical connectors and you can buy at the store you're gonna want to use automotive or marine grade primary hookup wire this is pure copper and it costs a lot this is oil resistant this is water resistant it's easy to work with and it does cost more than other options you can go down to the store and find cheap wire at Harbor Freight that is still technically pure copper it's not copper clad aluminum but the sheath is not that nice the insulation why I suggest everyone using automotive marine grade is this sheet is very strong it can handle vibrations it can handle years of abuse it can handle moisture and if you have a proper connection and you have a gas tight joint with a good crimp this stuff will last for decades this is typically upwards of 40 amps maximum if you have a short run with 10 gauge wire but yeah please read my book if you want to know how to size wire that's a totally different topic of conversation and you can use primary hookup wire for pretty much everything if you use the proper size but what if you have an appliance that's very small like some small LED lights what you want to use instead and some people will disagree with me okay is speaker wire you can buy oxygen free hopper speaker wire and this insulation is plenty good if you're indoors there's a low moisture environment and you just want some cheap wire to cup small appliances I'll make sure that this isn't rubbing on anything and you have everything mounted securely but this is great you will not have losses everything work properly and this is high-quality copper so I also have this on my website for very small appliances and then this is for like medium sized and then we have the welding cable for big stuff so yeah all of these wires are pure copper and that's very important now let's talk about solar wire so this is a totally different application than all of these because these need to be UV rated or resistant for like twenty to thirty years and we're going to talk about the differences and this is the strongest wires ever like this stuff is incredible look at how thick the insulation is on this and this one this white stuff I bought at a warehouse in the Bay Area and you will notice that the conductor is pretty small and you have a huge layer there's two layers and this will last 20 to 30 years in full sunlight in the desert there are lots of options when it comes to solar rated wire but most of these are safety rated to the same standards this one can handle 2,000 volts this one can handle 2,000 volts and it will say that ul listed and UV resistant it says PV wire it says solar wire so it needs to say that if these wires are on the roof if you use welding cable or you use primary hook up on the roof of a vehicle or a shed or a roof this stuff will fall apart I've made that mistake like eight years ago and I built some of my first systems and they literally fell apart within a year so you absolutely need to use solar wire when connecting the solar panels to the solar charge controller typically for most of our small systems we use 10 gauge wire it's easy to work with you can use standard connectors it works really well with the MC 4 adapters if you wire your a raised properly and you're keeping it under 15 amps or even 5 amps for a lot of people if you have with just one series string you don't have multiple parallel strings Tingy solar copper wire will work perfectly but you need to use solar wire also you can buy these off of the internet this is the windy nation one in its high quality and this is from a supplier in the Bay Area but my favorite one that's easy to work with not super thick and is pure copper that you can just see how high-quality this stuff is is going to be by timko timko has like every safety rating Under the Sun this will last 30 years you can put it underground you can put it on the roof in Arizona this stuff will not fall apart and this is not sponsored I've never been contacted by any of these wire companies but timco makes a really good wire I have bought hundreds of dollars of this wire because I like it so much the other stuff is good but I feel like this is just welding cable and there's not multi-layer this one is my favorite actually but I can't buy it anymore and this is really expensive stuff but this is what you use for commercial grade systems so this can handle all sorts of stuff but yeah like these two will handle 30 years no problem and you can put it anywhere but let's say you're on a budget is there a solar wire that you can buy that can still handle the current and the UV resistance and there is so this is low voltage Landscaping wire and so this is pure copper and you can buy it at Home Depot or Lowe's and it does work well but I don't know how long it will work for for a lot of my test arrays where I don't want to use Temko I always use low voltage landscaping wire it's very easy to connect to xt60 connectors you have two conductors with one chief and this will handle the UV resistance just fine you can actually bury this underground like the safety ratings are there but this is not nearly as strong as a 30-year rated industrial grade these are the same gauge of wire and it's like double the thickness like there is no comparison to this stuff but I know a lot of people if you have like 5 feet of wire going from one solar panel into a van and you can totally use this but you need to seal it off very well and you might run into some problems and you need to heat shrink with like marine grade heat shrink if you want a waterproof tight this joint because I've actually connected xt60 connectors to this and I actually had it short out even with the heat shrink because it's not rated for that so if you're trying to connect mc4 to low-voltage landscaping you might run into some issues you'll be like what the heck this isn't made for it it's because it's not made for it at all but you can still use this if you cut and strip everything and you use your own waterproof connectors like if these were higher quality like if you're using these marine grade terminal connectors you can use them with this with solar panels and it would be really cheap and it works really well but I don't know how long it will work for so I can't recommend it 100% but it does work it's safety certified and it's better than the cheap wire that you'll find off of Amazon now let's talk about waterproof connectors because you can buy these from China in the air dirt cheap but 90% of them are complete junk these ones are very high quality but they cost a lot this thing alone cost like 60 bucks well you get 600 of them they last a long time you have safety ratings it's listed and so these are high quality but there's something you guys need to know when you take a standard ratchet and crimper it just does not like to crimp it down all the way so when you crimp this down and you have a wire in here this is not a true crimp the walls are smaller than a standard ul listed connector so you have to get tricky with these ones so with water tight ones on whether it's China or not whether it's you all listed or not you need to use these kinds do not use the ratcheting crimper because you want to feel the crimp and get it all the way down in there and you'll feel the difference when you're crimping these just crimp a couple you know as testing get some cheap ones to feel how those feel and you'll be able to tell just by just feeling it how high-quality it is these ones are high quality but man I just hate crimp e in this jacket look how bad this looks like it never seems to come out looking good and be you have to use these kinds of crimpers so yeah not a big fan but these are great because they're waterproof and I actually use these outdoors I'll use a butt-splice connector to connect solar wire for cheap quick hookups but yeah typically you want to use the proper stuff for your job it's a long story short buy the more expensive ones and use the proper crimpers now that we're talking about wire and I've gone on a million tangents let's talk about why you're strippers so these are my favorite strippers on the planet if you have a single conductor and it's under ten gauge these are what you want to use they are $30 and they will last you the rest of your life their bike line and I love them it's so funny I'll tell people yeah spend a hundred dollars on tools because you can only get like three like these were $30 these were $30 these were $30 so that's 90 bucks but people will be like no we'll we should just buy the $10 ones at Harbor Freight and the difference in a cheap wire stripper compared to a high-quality client is not to be underestimated they might look the same but you need to spend more money on the tools to strip these wires another option that you have are these kinds of wire strippers I used to use these a lot but not so much anymore because if you have a large wire it can kind of crush the copper a little bit on one side but if you have small wires these work really well so for anything under 12 gauge I love these because they're fast and efficient and I can actually strip multiple wires when it comes to this one this does a perfect job absolutely perfect job every time and you have to use the exact you know spot for the size wire that you're using but you can't do multiple wires some small wires you have to like kind of find where it is so for this one I use it from like I don't know 14 gauge down to 10 gauge and that's it but that's a very common size or any of the small like BMS wires I use this one another option that you have is of course the small little tiny wire strippers that come on some of the cutters and crimpers I don't like these electricians love them because they're used in solid core so it's easier just to each and every individual solid-core when you have multi strand you don't want to mess with you you need to use the higher quality one and so on and so forth this is a very thick one though so you're gonna have to use one of these this is a cable stripper and we could talk all day about how cheap some of these are this one's made in Germany and it's probably the cheapest high quality one some of these are like 50 to $100 for the super high quality ones but this one's just fine this one works really well there are lots of cheap ones on Amazon that are absolute chunks so yeah just go to my website and see the one that I recommend which is this one it works every time if you put it on there you can spin it around and feel if it's how deep it is and then you can crank this just a little bit and make a perfect strip so you want to spend more money and get the good strippers because who cares if you have high quality wire and all this other stuff if you don't have tools to properly strip and crimp them and yeah lately I've been using this one up to two gauge and then I use my hammer crimp or I use a three point temper but this video is more for advanced users I think because I'm going on lots of tangents here but you need to use high quality stuff spend the extra money and you'll be so much happier and better off you will have things that will last a lifetime I think that's all I wanted to cover I just want to generally talk about all of these I might make another video that's faster where I'm like good bad good crimp bad crimp bad wire good wire but for this one I think a lot of people want to know these details and there's so much more to talk about but yeah that will give you the general idea if you follow those rules and you use what I use on the website you're done you don't have to think and you will have a solid system so thank you so much for watching and I'll talk to you later bye

Channel: DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse

Views: 533,272

Keywords: off grid solar, will prowse, diy solar, rv solar, off grid solar wire

Id: Mb0LQ19DEaI

Length: 23min 51sec (1431 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019