My big stuff is all marine grade copper strand pretinned...no issue here. My small stuff purhased from the "bay"..heck i don't know what i got. Some dual lead 28 ga i use for led installs i thought was pretinned but may be aluminum coated. It does solder nicely and has worked well but i am getting cautious thoughts. How do we know what we are getting?
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Only way I know of is to find a supplier that provides the specs on the wire. But, on the smaller stuff like the 28ga for LEDs, does it really matter? If so I need to be more careful as well.
I do like you did with all my power wire and make sure it's good wire. I used all OGR wire for power to everything. It's some of the smaller gauge stuff I get from ebay and they sometimes don't really say what it is.
I think it was Monoprice that also has good quality wire. The folks here post about using theirs quite a bit for layout power wiring. From what I saw it is also good quality wire. I don't know if they have smaller gauge wire though?
I have some Atlas wire which I think is good copper wire, #18 or #20 or maybe both, would have to look to be sure. I also bought a bunch of different wire from Radio Shack when they were closing stores. So far all of that I have used has been copper. They were selling it for 50-80% off so I got all I could find at a couple nearby different stores. They were like McDonalds around here, a store every couple of miles or so. We only have 3 left now and all are a bit of a drive for me.
The speaker wire on ebay is often copper clad aluminum. Copper on the outside. That way it can be soldered. It needs to be downgraded about one AWG step. So #12 copper clad aluminum is like #14 pure copper. If you cut the copper clad aluminum with a pair of side cutters, you can see the silver center in the end of the wire.
I unknowingly wired my current layout entirely with copper-clad aluminum speaker wire. The stuff I used is nice wire, solders easily, nice insulation and jacket. Layout runs just fine. Wasn't until I read a thread here that I went and looked at the boxes and, sure enough, they were copper-clad aluminum!
I would not hesitate to use it again if it solders and installs the same way. If it works at half the price, why not!
As far as small wires go, if you can solder it, don't worry about it.
I had some of the copper coated aluminum wire and it wouldn't solder worth a hoot, so apparently there's different quality levels in the product. 
gunrunnerjohn posted:I had some of the copper coated aluminum wire and it wouldn't solder worth a hoot, so apparently there's different quality levels in the product.
What gauge?
"It's half the price because aluminum can only carry half of what copper does."
There is enough misunderstanding of basic electrical theory on this forum to keep us occupied day and night answering questions, without adding to the confusion by making untrue remarks like that.
Grampstrains posted:It's half the price because aluminum can only carry half of what copper does.
Well, I think you're overstating the case. Copper has better conductivity, but not that much better.
Edit: I see Arthur beat me to it. 
Gramps, did you even look at the Ampacity chart that Arthur posted? It was actually for real, and your statement is incorrect. Probably time to move on.
rtr12 posted:Only way I know of is to find a supplier that provides the specs on the wire. But, on the smaller stuff like the 28ga for LEDs, does it really matter? If so I need to be more careful as well.
I do like you did with all my power wire and make sure it's good wire. I used all OGR wire for power to everything. It's some of the smaller gauge stuff I get from ebay and they sometimes don't really say what it is.
I think it was Monoprice that also has good quality wire. The folks here post about using theirs quite a bit for layout power wiring. From what I saw it is also good quality wire. I don't know if they have smaller gauge wire though?
I have some Atlas wire which I think is good copper wire, #18 or #20 or maybe both, would have to look to be sure. I also bought a bunch of different wire from Radio Shack when they were closing stores. So far all of that I have used has been copper. They were selling it for 50-80% off so I got all I could find at a couple nearby different stores. They were like McDonalds around here, a store every couple of miles or so. We only have 3 left now and all are a bit of a drive for me.
Bought some Monoprice 14ga copper speaker wire and it looks very high quality and not clad wire. Just got a $10 rebate on the shipping so it was very reasonable.
Another good rating for the Monoprice wire. I don't have any, but what I looked at appeared to be very nice. The $10 rebate on shipping is another nice plus as well.
"I know for real, do you?"
A man much smarter than I once told me "You don't need to KNOW...you need to know where to look it up." However, in this case, I know, and I know "for real" whatever that means.
Grampstrains posted:It's half the price because aluminum can only carry half of what copper does.
From an electrical engineer's perspective, that may or may not be true.
From an economist's perspective, aluminum wire is half the price of copper wire because 1) it costs half as much to produce or 2) because half as many people want to buy it, or 3) some combination of 1 and 2.
Steven J. Serenska
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
