Are you confusing twisted pairs with stranded vs. solid conductors? Jacketed? For power? Sorry, just not grasping the relevance.
My apologies - the sequence of posts mislead me. Still not sure what twisted pairs has to do with 120 vac and common neutrals.I was discussing twisted cables, not stranded/solid conductors. Brief sidebar someone asked a question about and dropped a link to earlier in the thread.
I heard that somebody smart said that.
This approach would give a bit more robustness and less chance of killing three branch circuits in a fault. The cost comparison would be:
6 1P 20A breakers
6 pole spaces in the panel
12 x 12AWG conductors home run outlets to main panel
Labor
vs.
1 3P 40A breaker
6 1P 20A breaker
9 pole spaces across two panels
1 MLO subpanel 6 pole spaces
4 x #8AWG conductors (neutral is current-carrying so it's four conductors for ampacity adjustment)
12 x #12AWG conductors between sub panel and outlets
Labor
I'm guessing the second one costs more.
ST
The way I read that is that there should be no more than a 3% drop on your run when fully loaded. So, if you had a 20 amp circuit at 120 volts and you switched on a 20 amp load (2400 watts), you should still read better than 116.4 volts at the load end. If you drop below that, then the wire needs to be up-gauged until you read better than 116.4 volts (assuming the voltage at the panel didn't drop.)On voltage drop, I just came across an article that was news to me, apparently California and New York now require Voltage Drop of 3% to be followed, instead of just an NEC recommendation, and I'm not sure how they would view LED stage lighting loads, based on this wording from California:
"The voltage drop in branch circuits is limited to 3% of design load."
"For branch circuits, the design load is either (a) the branch circuit rating for receptacle loads (usually 16 amps), or (b) the 100% load of a specific load such as motor or fixed equipment." - California Building Energy Efficiency Standards 8.4.2
Also a little surprising they state the design load as a full 16A, instead of the 180VA per receptacle NEC typically uses.
The way I read that is that there should be no more than a 3% drop on your run when fully loaded. So, if you had a 20 amp circuit at 120 volts and you switched on a 20 amp load (2400 watts), you should still read better than 116.4 volts at the load end. If you drop below that, then the wire needs to be up-gauged until you read better than 116.4 volts (assuming the voltage at the panel didn't drop.)
Now, if we could only get the electric company to abide by that!
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