stainless steel vs bronze braided hose for a ground connection

[USAeng]

A few guys at our shop are going back and forth about which would be better to use as a return path to ground... about 5/8" braided either stainless or bronze about 15' long... there will be an insulated wire going through carrying the current and then it will return through the braided hose back to ground... anyone know if one will be better than the other? is there a way to measure which is better? our multimeter's lowest setting is a 200ohm scale.... do we need a better multimeter for things like this? Basically- is there something I can do to prove that one will be actually noticably better than the other? Thank you!

 

[rbulsara]

Scotty:
Yes. The OP did not mention what you describe, however.

Braided "hose" as a raceway also seems tacky. Hoses go brittle after a while, braided or not. May be something is lost in translation.

Rafiq Bulsara

http://www.srengineersct.com

 

[waross]

The braided hose may be explosion proof flexible conduit. The corrogated inner lining may be a suggestion.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[PHovnanian]

Temperature and the chemistry of the environment might be a bigger factor than resistivity in this application. For the stated application, I don't think there will be much difference in performance (electrically).

 

[waross]

I agree with you on that PHovnanian. That was the thinking behind my post of 14 Aug 10 10:16.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[LionelHutz]

Read here under "Explanation";

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistivity

Basically, the resistance is the resistivity times the length divided by the cross sectional area of the conductor.

Calculate the resistance of both types of conductors and then you can calculate the voltage drop difference. Since you'll likely ask that too, the voltage drop is the resistance times the current.