Wiring question / advice requested

How-Tos & Esk8 mechanics Esk8 Mechanics
#1

Hoping to get some knowledge from those of you who have built your own.

My battery I made is designed to safely put out 240 amps of current, though I know my esk8 will never pull that. The dual ESC is wired up for single 8AWG but claims to be good up to 200 amps (100 amps per motor) but in my experience that is extremely undersized for a 200 amp draw. You’d have to double up 8awg to even be moderately okay for that, ideally 1/0. I’m guessing that either the specs advertised are extremely over inflated or the designers don’t know what they are doing.

I’ve seen some of y’all say that motor amps don’t equal battery amps and I’m not sure how that works if it’s indeed a thing.

So should I just wire up the battery / esc etc to a single run of 8AWG and monitor it? What’s your guys thoughts?

#2

Motor amps are proportional to torque, battery amps are proportional to power. You can pull full motor amps from a standstill, but you will pull very few battery amps. Full battery amps occur at full speed and full torque.

The single 8AWG might not matter too much if you keep the run as short as possible, so the heat can sink into the surrounding wire.

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#3

Typically we can get away with smaller wire gauges because our equipment very rarely sees those kinds of high continuous currents, our wire lengths are generally very short, and the majority of us use silicone wire that has a very high temperature rating.

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#4

Thanks guys

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