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Twisting wire for higher voltage

2K views 15 replies 9 participants last post by  ddawg16 
#1 ·
First off, as you will soon see, I am not an electrician. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about wire gage and capacity. If you twist the ends of say two #10 coated wires does that give you more voltage capacity that just one wire? Would it be advisable to do that if that was the wire you had available? Say you wanted to install a 30 amp circuit that was a 150 ft run and only had #10 wire.
 
#2 ·
150feet 30amp, would work on #10. No problem about that short of length. It would even work with #12. The only thing that you did not state was the voltage. As for twisting, no it would not be needed, or something that you would want to do. They do do what you are stating for speaker wiring, but in turn, does not improve anything.
 
#9 · (Edited)
If you twist the ends of say two #10 coated wires does that give you more voltage capacity that just one wire? Would it be advisable to do that if that was the wire you had available? Say you wanted to install a 30 amp circuit that was a 150 ft run and only had #10 wire.
With properly bolted or wirenutted connections at each end you should get almost half the voltage drop at any given current that you would get with a single #10, and the wires won't get as hot as a single conductor because you have more total surface area.

With imperfect connections your parallel arrangement will act like a single #10.

You can test this with a heavy load and voltmeter using an extension cord as a test lead.

The thing is, the smaller the wires used, the less important the connection integrity becomes, so I don't understand the NEC's reasoning in this case.
 
#16 ·
FYI....twisting the wire will actually add to the length....and be counter productive. You see stranded wire twisted because that allows it to bend without breaking. If there was no twist....it would be about par to trying to bend solid wire.
 
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