Re: why use high voltage wire?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

At 04:43 PM 3/13/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><Beans45601-at-aol-dot-com>
>
>Why do people worry about using high voltage cable to hook up all their 
>components? I know it will stop arcing that would happen between wires, 
>but if you are sure to keep the wires far apart, why would you need to use it?
>Thanks
>Adam
You don't need to use it... But it looks cool, doesn't it?

There IS a practical reason, although not a reason to sell your firstborn 
child to buy HV wire:
1) Real HV wire (rated for, say, 30 kV and up) has a semiconducting layer 
around the conductor which increases the effective radius of the conductor, 
greatly reducing corona. Reducing corona reduces losses, and makes the 
insulation last longer (a LOT longer)  Of course, bare 1/4" copper tubing 
would do the same...

2) While you might keep all your wires away from grounded things, and so 
forth, accidents DO happen, and insulated wire reduces the odds of that 
accident being a loud "ZZZT".


I only use HV wire for where it's going to be in contact with something 
(like the ground).  For other applications, I use bare wire, mostly so that 
it's really obvious that it's not insulated... If you used, for instance, 
AWG12 THHN house wire, (rated for all of 600V), it might not be obvious to 
a casual observer that the conductor is egregiously underinsulated, and 
they might do something stupid or lethal or both.