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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Cobra CPI-A4000BC 4-AWG Heavy-Duty AC Power Inverter Cable Kit

The Cobra 4-AWG Heavy-Duty AC Power Inverter Cable Kit is ideal for installing professional grade power inverters in vehicle or shop applications. This pack includes one 10-foot 4-gauge red power cable, one 10-foot 4-gauge black ground cable, and one 8-foot 8-gauge chassis ground cable. These wires come with battery terminal connectors and tinned contacts for easy installation. These wires specifically fit Cobra inverter models CBRCPI1550, CBRCPI1575, CBRCPI2550, and CBRCPI2575.

Amazon Sales Rank: #241 in Automotive Brand: Cobra Model: CPI-A40000 BC Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 1.70" h x 10.80" w x 10.90" l, 6.38 pounds Please see the above description.

Most helpful customer reviews 36 of 38 people found the following review helpful. Not a bad price, but copper quality is questionable By HMMWV If Monster cable could only see the copper inside this jacket. Normally when you cut a piece of heavy cable in the center and strip back the insulation you see nice shiny copper. Granted the ends may be oxidized a bit but they are open to the air - I cut this at the halfway point to make 2 shorter cable sets or 4 equal cable pieces. This cable, while being nice and flexible, looked like an old penny inside - heavily oxidized and ugly as sin. I suspect its reclaimed copper 2 times over without proper slag removal. That's the only reason I took away one star.Also the crimp lugs supplied leave a tad to be desired, but they include some properly sized red and black heatshrink. You are supposed to put the stripped cable into the lugs then fold each half over the other with "electricians pliers" - My professional crimper was able to fold them but not close them tight on the wire, so out came the persuader - a 16 oz claw hammer and some cement. Yep - that closed the crimp nice and snug on the wire. Now it has a good snug grip. I did buy some professional #4 lugs at the hardware store made of copper like a shiny penny and my professional crimper did those justice, so their lugs are a tad sub par but you can put them on with just about anything. Alternately I could have hit it with a propane torch and fed some solder to it, which I may still do if there is excessive loss in the cable. I prefer soldered connections wherever possible.I also bought some nice bolt on attachments at the hardware store for $2/pr that have a bar which snugs down with 2 ea 7/16 bolts and nuts on the back side. Now that was a solid connection - I drove the bolts home with my dewalt 3/8" impact driver and a 7/16 socket which grabbed the wire and would not let go, then gave me a big ring to tie to that did not look like someone pounded a crimp lug with a hammer on cement to make it grab!I realize copper is expensive these days but this stuff was recycled 2 or 3 times over. New copper wire shouldn't look like a 1960's penny under the couch. It sure makes monster cable's oxygen free copper look bright and shiny by comparison. On the other hand, I did especially like the fact that the insulation is color coded properly, red and black. I have seen high current wiring kits where the wire's insulation is entirely black, entirely white, or some other way of not coding the positive and negative by insulation color. Even the space shuttle wiring is ENTIRELY white no matter what purpose it serves. The only identification each white wire gets is a black wrapper with a 4 or 5 digit number that is referenced in the schematics. Nasa's wire is also silver plated copper and thus carries the same current of cruddy copper wire 1 size larger with the same loss and less weight at 10x the price.Other than the cruddy copper - it's a good value - you're getting 20 feet of #4 cable with precrimped lugs on one end and trimmable to length on the other end with a set of lugs you can pound onto the wire. It certainly has the heft of 20 feet of #4 too - this shipped at over 5 lbs, most of which was the 2 pieces of #4 cable. It ran my inverter just fine so no harm.You also get a green ground wire to tie your inverter chassis to whatever ground you have, be it in a car or a ground rod in the earth. Like me you probably don't think you need a ground for a battery powered device - when wwas the last time you grounded your remote control? In theory ground wires should cary no current nor any voltage, but the spinning fan on the inverter can cause static electricity. You do need to equalize any static charge buildup or leakage in capacitors, or alternately stray magnetic fields causing voltage in metalic parts. Sure these are small voltages, between 0.5 and 2.0 V but they can flip a logic state if not returned to ground and also making troubleshooting a

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