ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Quick wire size question.

Help! I'm working on a bid and my "handy" electric calculator is giving me conflicting answers on wire size for a long run. The run is almost 400 feet(up and down included) from the main panel to the sub panel. 100 amps 120/208 3 phase. Using copper THHN and 3% VD, what size wire?
While we're at it, how much would you bid? Most of the run is 25ft in the air and you need to add 3 30 amp 3 phase outlets to plug in equipment near the new sub. The panels are seimens bolt in and the conduit needs to bew EMT, you provde the lift. Thanks!

10,700 #2 wire 2"emt

With a full load and 3.1% you need to run a 2/0. 3/0 gets you douwn to a 2.5% v/d..
To early in the morning to help with the quote..
SC John.

Ditto SCJohn,
2.55% VD with 3/0
2" EMT

Sorry
3/0 is correct

Feedback please - these VD calculations to determine the need for 3/0 conductor is based on a 100A draw - in truth this panel will not be pulling 100A...prob. won't even be pulling 90A....if you use 90A in your calculation your conductor size drops to 2/0. Not only does this lower the matl. cost it sure makes pulling into that 2" conduit a lot easier. My opinion is this: if you're going to be pulling more than 80A from a 100A panel, you should be upsizing it to begin with.

Your calculation is based on Article 220. That is where your amps for your VD calc should come from.

Thanks to everyone! My ElectriCalc was telling me 3/0 CU, but I didn't want to believe it. I mean 4/0 AL is good for 200. The actual run is more like 370ft and I can live with just over 3%VD, so I did the quote with 2/0, although my gut tells me that they will never pull more than 50 or 60 amps in which case #1CU would be fine. I gave the bid the way I would want it, if I lose it to someone using #1 or #2, then so be it. Thanks Guys

George is right. Use 220, not your gut feeling (I thought you said 100 amp load).

electure, I ignored my gut feeling and went with the max, but I doubt my competion did, that's what I was saying. Acutally when you add the 3 pieces of equipment, the total max amps is 58 (22,22&14) and will all run at the same time. But this is for a 100 amp sub panel and someone in the future could add more equipment or even another sub panel off of this one. Therefore I wanted to make sure the wire could handle max load without substanial VD.