I am trying to decide what kind of cable to run in my trunk mount battery system. I am going to run #1 gauge. I have looked at the stuff that Jegs sells, Moroso, Painless, etc.
Then there is the stuff that Mad Electrical has on their website, although I don't know if they are still selling it.
Finally there is the new stuff from Accel which is essentially copper coated aluminum and weighs half as much as the pure copper stuff.
It seems to me that the majority of the decent stuff is 133 strand copper and good for 250amps cont. So brand name shouldn't really matter, copper is copper. Here are my questions:
1) Is there a big difference between brands on the outer sheath?
2) Is the Accel stuff a good product? I can't find an amp rating for it and aluminum wire makes me nervous (think house wiring).
3) Anybody out there running the Mad Electrical stuff?

I would appreciate any info/experiences from you guys.

-Jason

Welding Cable....Any welding supply should have it. Figure out how many feet you need because it's sold by the foot. I would buy a couple ft extra to be safe. The crimp/solder ends can be bought at any hardware store.

Thanks for the quick reply! I should have mentioned that I did the welding cable thing in a Charger I had back in the early 80s. It worked, but I was wondering if there were any benefits to be gained by going with the stuff that was actually made for the auto applications.


-Jason

we buy the cable at our local auto parts store.
We also borrow the cable crimp tool from them once we are ready to install the ends.

I used #1 welding cable.

Never come close to stressing it out in a car the way you do when your welding.

1/0 welding cable

The way I look at it is..welding cable is made to handle high amps/volts and hold up to a lot of abuse.
I would never consider aluminum no matter what.

Marine grade cable is going to be the highest quality. I work in the marine electrical industry, and we use tinned copper cable. Best stuff for high current capacity. Welding cable is a good second choice, but be careful of the jacket around corners and sharp edges. It's not very abrasion resistant. Use some larger hose to slip over it, or they sell split loom for cable protection. Also, it may just my opinion, but I ran both positive and negative cables to the front, I did not use the body to carry negative current back to the battery. I don't believe that is the best route to take. Again, that is just my opinion.

Welding cable is designed for an entirely different use. It works but is not correct. You can get #1 Automotive wire at NAPA and I used solder (sp) on ends. They have solder pills you put in the end and heat to melt then stick the wire in and let cool.

NAPA has the solder pills?

I used #1 from NAPA also. I crimped the connectors then soldered. A propane torch set fairly low and rosin core solder works fine. I just get the connector and wire inside hot and feed in the solder. Some black heat shrink finishes it off well.

I used the chaassis for ground making sure the grounds were hooked up to a thicker structural part of the frame and not just sheet metal. The trunk ground was bolted through the floor and through a brace of thicker steel between the rails and rear X member.

Copper welding cable and crimped connectors. In testing situations we ahve seen #1 take 400 amps continuos with no problems at all

Actually, many of the ones I have looked at have 133 strand not 19. But I was curious as to what REAL differences there were in respect to the outer sheath.

So nobody out there has used the Mad Electrical cable??

-Jason

ive seen it and its not the best quality cable. not to mention it is way over priced

Two pices of welding cable with a butt splice in the middle on mine(because the 2 pieces wernt long enough).I am using two auto ground cables for the neg. and using the chassis as the long piece between the engine compartment and trunk .I did shrink wrapped the butt splice.It always starts right up everytime ,with just one battery .Welding cable is fine and always will be for this application .Racers have been using it as battery cable for decades ...

I second the marine application cable. Marine store had the ends and crimped them on.

imho welding cable is the ONLY conductor i would use

Welding cable or fine strand Marine AGW tinned copper, Anchor cable co makes a marine cable similar to welding cable but has a oil proof outer jacket that's real tuff to tare