Hypothetical sparky question

[sotxbill]

you can always put the excess cord, coiled up, and under the oil pan for that extra shot of heat. or even around the battery for that matter.

 

[rustred]

ok, so be practical about it,... as said coil up the cord and the snow will definitly be melted. ... for sure. geeze i have 30-40 ft cords
at times running in the hard snow and they get melted right in a couple inches,... and if you dont pull them out then good luck once they
freeze in. it just fact.all the engineers here and nobody has a down to earth true answer, just hypo answers. figuring things on paper and
doing the actual thing is more realistic.

 

[Brian G. NY]

(quoted from post at 15:55:55 09/23/23) John; This reminds me of a friend that needed a longer extention cord. He had a box with some house wiring in it. I don't know the gauge, either 12 or 14. He pulled out enough for the job & connected both ends & used it for a while. When he was done the coil of wire in the box got so hot the insulation was melted so bad the wire was usless.

That's a whole different animal! An extended piece of wire will benefit from dissipated heat.

 

[Dave G9N]

(quoted from post at 07:55:55 09/23/23) John; This reminds me of a friend that needed a longer extention cord. He had a box with some house wiring in it. I don't know the gauge, either 12 or 14. He pulled out enough for the job & connected both ends & used it for a while. When he was done the coil of wire in the box got so hot the insulation was melted so bad the wire was useless.

ep, a long straight cable can dissipate heat over a large area. The heat produced by a coil of wire in a box has nowhere to go, so it builds up. If he had cut off enough wire to do the job, there would have been less voltage drop, less heat to dissipate and what heat was generated would have been better able to dissipate.