Service cord vs trailer cable - what's the difference?

[natepiercy]

Obligatory: this might not be the correct forum for this question, so please point me in the right direction if so.

I'm looking at an application that uses 14/4 wire to send <2A to solenoids at 12VDC. The cable would be routed around 80 feet along a piece of farm equipment in a field. I'm trying to figure out what the difference would be between using trailer cable vs service cord. The way I see it 14 GA is 14 GA, so if the wire is rated properly for my load, what would be the difference? Does the jacketing on one way outperform the other, or something like that? I see that the service cord is typically more expensive. Is that because it'll outperform the trailer cable, or if it's just the added price of some type of certification?

Thanks,
Nate

 

[itsmoked]

The more expensive cable is using EDPM a very tough rubber-like jacket. The Trailer cable is the pedestrian PVC stuff. The PVC is about 1/3 as resilient as the EDPM. The EDPM is also more resistant to oils, fuels, and chemicals in general. Walking on the EDPM would likely not hurt it in a thousand steps whereas the PVC will quickly get ruffed up and possibly crack in, say, 250 steps on it.

Either will likely work for you. If you only need it for maybe 2 years I'd probably go with the trailer cable. If you have lots of chemicals and want it to last 5~10 years go with the EDPM.

BTW you could probably get by with 16AWG for those 2A loads at 80ft(160ft round trip) as that would be a 1.3V drop.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[LionelHutz]

SJOOW is good stuff, but unless you plan on VERY good wire protection it likely won't survive on a piece of farm equipment long enough to be worthwhile.

PVC might work better if you are say tie-wrapping the cable along a bar since it's stiffer so it'll tend to stay straighter between tie-wraps.