sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information using ext cord 300' to power amp

my son is getting married Friday in a park. He emails me today looking for extension cords turns out the nearest outlet to the wedding site is about 300'

that seems like a stretch to me for running extension cords

He's going to power a 400 watt about 3 amp stereo amp

Ive been looking for calculators online with no luck so far

will running 300' of 16 ga or so extension cords pose a problem ?

a thought I had was to pull my truck battery and power it off my power inverter but that's rated a 300 watts with a 600 watt surge

I'd check with our electrician experts, Ed and Hal, but for that distance and draw I sure wouldn't want 16 gauge. If you can find industrial 12 gauge that would probably handle it.

That much distance I would use 12 ga cords

16 ga at 3A and 300' voltage loss is about 7.25 volts

12 ga at 300' would be 2.85

No idea how accurate this is, but I found a calculator here . 14ga minimum, 12 to be safe.

You might also want to test that receptacle to make sure it's live before the wedding day. It would be a downer to roll out ~300' of cord and connect everything, only to find out there's no power.

Your inverter is undersized for that use, even if you don't crank the amp all the way. 300w on a 12v truck battery is 25 Amps (plus inverter loss), and the battery will not last long at that current draw.

Another idea is to rent or borrow a small, quiet, portable generator, like a Honda EU1000i. You could not only power the amp, but lights, fans, small coolers, and so on, with it.

ETA: If you aren't running anything else and aren't running the amp like a Megadeth concert (say, half volume, max), 16gauge should work okay too.

Jack

I'm in full agreement with all of the above. I wouldn't really worry about the voltage drop if using 12 gauge cord, but it would truly stink if the receptacle ends up being dead.

Skip, I forgot to mention: early congratulations to your son and his soon-to-be wife. May they have a long and happy marriage.

Jack

Honda generator....hummmmm!

I also neglected to congratulate you. Hope your son and soon to be new daughter in law have a happy life together.

I'd about bet you could rent some heavy duty cords at one of those rental places, or a generator.

I have been in front of the small Honda genset they're talking about -- it really is quiet enough to power gear for a performance; it's *amazing*.

Thanks for the input

As Ed has said you can get a knowledgeable answer to almost any question here

in further conversion this is just for music

I'm still leaning toward a 12 volt battery and power inverter right at the amp with no ext cords . I'll have to do the math to see if we can get a hour or so out of it

we're riding up with my other son so we could take my truck battery and the battery out of Diane's car

He said he has been by a couple of times randomly to check and the outlet has been hot

off course no grantee it will be hot come "showtime"

I'll look into renting a generator or some heavy cords this week if we cant find enough to borrow.
I know there are some quite generators out there

thanks for the well wishes we're really pleased for them they seem well suited for each other

youve got to love the internet he gave me a map this morning of the site on google earth