Do we have to comply to the standard 3000:2000 for wiring standards which states a voltage drop of 10% is allowed? (many cars here have volathe drop of lest say 14v car running drop to 10v whch is wel over 20%) and we all exced teh amp draw as stated in standard 3008:2000?

just curious as i ma currently at TAFE doing my 3rd year electrical stuff and im up to rule book.

Does car audio have standard?

i know my car doe snot meet thease standards

what what can we do?

The only time most peoples voltage will drop that much is if they are burping for SPL purposes, in which case there is SFA you can do outside of upping the voltage, even then you will still see cars suffering excessive voltage drop.

Dunno about there being a standard though, maybe one of the distributors can shed some light on it?

yea i know ive just purchased 4 deep cycles
but burping is peak current and thast what voltage drop is on.

this could be some sort of legal issue as well i guess if 'bobs' car audio does acar install for me and the car burns down for some reason or he cooks his amsp i spose it could come down to him. or cranky customer could insit on full new install with more batts and bigger cabel as his car did not meet standards.

just some thing to wrap ya heads arround
at work i have acess to standards online and ill see if there are any automotive standards and ill get digital copy so i can search them more easy.

The WIRING (assuming it is the appropriate size, as it is in 99% of proper installs) suffers less than 1% voltage drop.

The POWER SUPPLY (battery) however is the one that suffers the voltage drop because it simply runs out of stored power.

The voltage drop is a result of the supply not being able to meet the demand, this has nothing to do with the wiring.

When the batteries in my shaver start to run out and it starts spinning slower and slower, it hasn't breached safety standards because of the voltage drop. It's simply running out of juice.

Assuming that you could cram 1000 batteries into your car, the only problem would be if, on a peak burp, you were suffering voltage drop due to the WIRING heating up and not being able to cope with the current draw.


I think you need to distinguish between a short-lived power supply and cable-losses.

but its worked out on peak demand, applianc eahve different standard. wil have a look at my 3008 cable selection and work out max current for 50mm (0 guage)

People who run large stereo's have multiple runs of wiring.... 6 or 7 runs of 0 guage for a multi-thousand watt system.

If everyone turned all their electricals on simultaneously in their houses, and the substation's couldn't meet demand, so the voltage dropped and there was a blackout, this has nothing to do with the cable!

voltage drop depends on load and cable.
Maxuim demand is work on lot of tables (austrialin standard 3000 table C1 and C2) which use some common sence 100% of lights, GPO's, heating devices will never be on)

but in car audio we run 100% load for few sec.

if u turned on 100% of house load on fuses would blow, circuit breaker trip as would main swich.

Mind u u can never get 100% of alaod its impossible getting fridge, freezer, washing machine, dryer, air con, fans to start at excatly the same time as motor will draw 700% of starting current to get them started.
not to mention all heating elemnts running at same tiem all gp0's loaded up starting current in lighst ballest and starters

Have you thought of reading your post and checking the spelling before hitting the "add reply" button?

The key words here are "supply" and "demand" voltage drop is usually attributed to not enough current output from the alt, too small cable over distance, battery capacity and of course grounding. As long as you use the right cable etc you shouldn't have more than 15% loss.