[no subject]

Doing this measurement does not measure just the voltage drop
in the wire, but the load regulation of the power supply, as well.

It is reasonable to expect that an Apple supply will drop a few
percent as it goes from no-load (where it may not even regulate)
to full-load.  This drop would be observed at the terminals of the
poser supply PC board, excluding the leads.  The leads will then
add a small additional IR drop (which is outside the regulation loop).

Since the nominal resistance of a foot of #18 copper wire is
0.0075 ohms, at a current of 3A, the lead would contribute
an additional 0.0225 volts of drop.  Most (all?) Apple supplies
have two ground leads, so in normal operation, with no other
loads (and +12v load is typically light except when a disk
drive is running), the two ground leads in parallel would
contribute another 0.01125 volt drop at the main board
power terminals.  If the resistive load was applied between
+5 and only one ground lead, as I suspect, then the ground
lead would contribute another 0.0225 volt drop, for a total
of 0.045 volts drop in the power supply leads.

The remainder of the voltage drop under load would be
attributable to the load regulation (or "stiffness") of the
power supply.  Aging of the input power capacitors would
decrease the supply's regulation margin, and would reduce
its stiffness somewhat.

I'm not trying to dispute that your replacement of the
power supply leads and beefing-up the main board power
distribution improves the stability of a system which was
exhibiting instability.

What I dispute is the cause of the improvement, and
its permanence (since a marginal power supply will
continue to deteriorate).

If you are running an Apple II with a chronic overload as
a result of lots of power-hungry add-on cards, then replacing
the power supply with one that will handle the load easily is
always a good idea.

And if the card complement exceeds Apple's specs
sufficiently, then beefing up the slot power distribution
network is also useful.

But a heavier-duty power supply and better bypassing
on the main board should do the job--without using wires
bigger than #18, since even a 10A load would only cause
a wire drop of 0.112 volts, which is well within the 10%
supply tolerance of 0.5 volts.

As you may have guessed, I'm really down on the kind
of superstition that leads to Monster Cables.  This is a
company that has made millions by bilking people out of
hard-earned money for what is demonstrably a placebo
effect.  Double-blind studies repeatedly show that even
their proponents cannot identify the presence of "special"
cables in comparison with just good cables.  That is to
say, they are right no more often than predicted by
chance.

They are in the same camp as the folks who make
little metal screens to stick over the speaker hole in
cell phones to "prevent brain cancer".  ;-)

-michael

Check out 8-bit Apple sound that will amaze you on my
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/