High voltage wire??

japudjuha

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
334
Location
South Australia
Does anyone know where I can buy 25-40kv wire here in
Australia?
I am building an hid blitz and need it to extend the lamp cable.

Are there any other options?
Thanks
 

Norm

Retired Administrator
Joined
Jun 13, 2006
Messages
9,512
Location
Australia
Not too sure if the still do, a lot of auto stores used to sell plain wire spark plug lead off the roll, check your local auto electrician he may have something laying around.

Norm
 

Sway

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 25, 2003
Messages
1,721
Location
North Carolina
:caution: I would try and engineer around cutting/extending the high voltage wires if possible or find a ballast with a longer lamp cable to start with. Some ballast don't like the extra resistance added by the cutting and splicing and will release their magic smoke in protest, been there done that x2.

Later
Kelly
 

N8N

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Apr 26, 2013
Messages
1,241
I thought about spark plug wire myself, but be aware, there are three different kinds.

The most common kind is carbon core "suppression wire" and is designed to suppress RFI by its internal resistance. I'm assuming that this would be unsuitable for your purposes.

Next would be "spiral core" wire which suppresses RFI by using a solid wire wrapped in a spiral rather than in a straight line.

The last is going to be hardest to find as I don't believe it's legal to run on public roads (may be different in Oz but I doubt it) which would just be straight up copper wire with insulation on it and no RFI suppression. Will likely be sold "for off road use only" or as "racing wire"
 

inetdog

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Joined
Mar 4, 2013
Messages
442
It is usually not the extra series resistance (which is very small) that causes the problem. It is the extra capacitance in parallel which draws too much current from the output circuit or reduces the peak voltage at the lamp for starting.
For mains powered HID and even pulse start fluorescent there are stated limitations on how far away the ballast can be mounted.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
 

Norm

Retired Administrator
Joined
Jun 13, 2006
Messages
9,512
Location
Australia
Not too sure if the still do, a lot of auto stores used to sell plain wire spark plug lead off the roll, check your local auto electrician he may have something laying around.

Norm

I thought about spark plug wire myself, but be aware, there are three different kinds.

Sorry I'm old I can still remember when all spark plug leads where plain copper wire. :)

Norm
 
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