This is an interesting question.

 

Depends on what your doing. If you are on ladders or on equipment a longer whip is good to have. I use 20' of #1 superflex for mine

 

I have 50' and 100' sections of lead. They have Tweco style connectors on both ends, male on the welder side and female on the other end. Kind of just like an extension cord. On my welders I have 1' whips with female Tweco's. On my suitcase wire feeders, I have a 1' whip with a male Tweco, to plug into the end of my lead. For my stingers I use a 10' to 15' whip of #2 or #1, and for my ground clamps I use a 1' to 2' whip of 1/0.

 

I have a 10' whip with # 2 cable with stinger one one end and a lug on the other. The lug ends allows it to be placed in the stinger on the heavier cable. Some cable has those 400 amp holders so a whip with a smaller 200 amp stinger is really nice.

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I use tweco quick connects and an 11' length of cable from the stinger to the first connection. The reason for the 11' is that I have been on jobs were the safety folks required you to have a minimum of 10' from stinger to the first connection for safety reasons. Needless to say we had to make some new whips one time and ever since I've made mine 11'. Also having them a little longer keeps the connection from getting caught all the time on what your working on.

 

Both of mine (I like different style stingers for different things) are 12.5' long because my LWS sells welding leads in 25' increments so I bought 25' and cut it in half. The Tweco connectors have never been in my way yet.

 

My company's standard welding lead size is 2/0. My whips are 12.5' of #2 cable. Like lain P said I bought 25' of #2 and cut it in half. Really nice if you're staying anything below a 5/32 7018. When I need to burn 1/4 7018 I have my 2/0 lead and Radnor Stub Nose.