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Best way to hook 6 guage wire to power supply

Connect the 6 gauge positive to two pieces of 10awg, do the same for the negative.

Now you have two 10 gauge positives and two 10 gauges negatives.

Connect the 10awg negatives, one each, to the negative posts.

Connect the 10awg positives, one each, to the positive posts.


That may help a LITTLE, but I think at the end of the day you’re going to need a bigger supply, or an adjustment of the radio.

Do you have any idea what they’ve set the radio output to?
 
In any case I never had an issue using soldered ring terminals. I also apply star washers to those. Screw terminals have the potential of becoming loose while their associated cables are being tugged around in a counterclockwise direction. Star washers not only provide for a better connection, they also help eliminate that problem.
 
Ok...

So they call that a “52”, but if you read the specs it’s rated at 600watts at 13.8 volts. That’s actually a little over 40 amps. If you’re running more than 13.8, then less than that.

I found a thread that might be of use to you...people have reported that they were NOT able to run an N2 on an Astron 50 amp supply. The Astron is rated at a full 50 amps at a 50% duty cycle (such as a two way radio).

You might not have a terminal issue, but an issue with the sizing of the supply or the adjustment of the radio.

https://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/rci-2970n2-power.145645/

I would check your voltage and make sure you’re at 13.8. And I would back the RF power on the radio off a bit and see if you can get it to run.

In the end, you might want to have the radio checked out to make sure you’re not asking too much of the onboard amp. Several folks in the link I posted suggested that.
Here is what I put in line to help, a gray 300 draws a lot of amps. That is what you heard me talking on today, 50 amp supply running through the thousand watt capacitor. It levels the edges off the spikes going back into the supply.
 

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Here is what I put in line to help, a gray 300 draws a lot of amps. That is what you heard me talking on today, 50 amp supply running through the thousand watt capacitor. It levels the edges off the spikes going back into the supply.
Captain Kilowatt should like this
 
Captain Kilowatt should like this


Not really. I'm not a fan of bandaids which is what a capacitor really is. I prefer brute force current capability. Use #4 or #2 wire of you have too and a power supply that will supply all the amps you need. IMHO caps should only be used to smooth the AC ripple after a rectifier.. My old school Tripp-Lite PR-40a blew the cap bank and I replaced it with a single 100,000uF cap. The supply now goes THUNK!! when I turn it on. LOL The cap has a tremendous initial surge current when it charges up.
 
Not really. I'm not a fan of bandaids which is what a capacitor really is. I prefer brute force current capability. Use #4 or #2 wire of you have too and a power supply that will supply all the amps you need. IMHO caps should only be used to smooth the AC ripple after a rectifier.. My old school Tripp-Lite PR-40a blew the cap bank and I replaced it with a single 100,000uF cap. The supply now goes THUNK!! when I turn it on. LOL The cap has a tremendous initial surge current when it charges up.

Never realized that amp draw on load up for those stereo caps where big drawback. Friend of mine got one in truck because the Teaburry ssb was acting funny. Guess the pwr was not good. I suppose it does as you describe and smoothed out the ripples.
 
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Never realized that amp draw on load up for those stereo caps where big drawback. Friend of mine got one in truck because the Teaburry ssb was acting funny. Guess the pwr was not good. I suppose it does as you describe and smoothed out the ripples.

It would supply peak current if the battery and wiring were limiting things but it only works on SSB not AM. It can only provide tiny duration peak current. Folks running them on AM mode are just fooling themselves. The cap drop voltage in a fraction of a second after keying up in continuous carrier mode. In SSB mode or with an audio amp it can provide current during voice peaks and charge up again during low current draws.
 
Come to think of it, remembering his set up.....Teaburry I w/ some linear on it. Never did think he had used adequate wire for power.....too cheap to go buy any the rt size.

The cap helped some....I guess. I could make out some of what he was saying. Sounded clipped and garbled, like under water, or in the fish bowl.

I think that ole Teaburry needs some attention.

The second 980 I purchased is a present to him. Doubt he will trust anyone to work on his ole Teaburry, he's real proficient at fucking things up with that golden screwdriver. Has a pile of radios on work bench, not one of which works. Has decrepit radios in various states of decay in the barn. Refuses to send anything off, and complains about not being able to get parts. Will not use web or order online. I find the excuses are to cover the BS.

But it's good to know that cap set up is beneficial.
 
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It would supply peak current if the battery and wiring were limiting things but it only works on SSB not AM. It can only provide tiny duration peak current. Folks running them on AM mode are just fooling themselves. The cap drop voltage in a fraction of a second after keying up in continuous carrier mode. In SSB mode or with an audio amp it can provide current during voice peaks and charge up again during low current draws.

If the rig isn’t pulling enough with a carrier to drop the voltage, wouldn’t it still help with peaks on AM?

I agree if voltage is already dropping the cap will do nothing but instantly discharge, but it seems that it could help on some cases on AM?
 
If the rig isn’t pulling enough with a carrier to drop the voltage, wouldn’t it still help with peaks on AM?

I agree if voltage is already dropping the cap will do nothing but instantly discharge, but it seems that it could help on some cases on AM?

Think about it this way. You are asking the wire to supply current to power the radio AND maintain peak charge on the capacitor for an infinite number of time cycles. Time cycles being the amount of time it takes to charge/discharge a capacitor based on capacitance value and resistance (of the wire in this case). If the wires is small enough to need a capacitor in the first place then it is small enough that it will have higher resistance and the result will be a longer charge up time versus an almost instant discharge time when called upon to provide current on voice peaks since the resistance is inline with the charge path to the cap but not in the discharge path.If the wire is large enough to eliminate that issue it is large enough to maintain the proper current to the radio. I remember really OLD......think TUBE type mobile radios on the VHF bands. They had really large cables to the battery and were running AM. Yes this is before the day when public service agencies switched to FM. LARGE wiring was used and everything worked fine. I still have some of the old cloth covered + and - wire cables used by one of the fire depts and local police. It must be at least 4 gauge wire and this was for a 50 watt mobile radio. Well if you can call a 40 pound trunk mounted radio mobile. LOL
 

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