- Joined
- Jul 9, 2014
- Messages
- 613
Years ago here in the UK we had aluminium core telephone wires for all the underground cable late 1950's to early 70's as it was far cheaper than copper ... what's that old saying buy cheap buy twice??
Come the mid 1980's we were having to change out millions of miles of the cables because they had become brittle and almost all the joints had ionised ,giving high resistances no matter what the differing material used for the jointing connectors were .
We have never to the best of my knowledge used aluminium for power supply cables due to the heating effect of poor joints plus the resistance is higher than copper so not only do you get the heat , it also costs you more to push the power round the national power grid system.
It's even becoming the regulated electrical norm that stranded copper or single conductor wire is now fitted with a crimp on alloy sleeve , to prevent oxidisation & corrosion between the copper cable and whatever it is fixed into ...... No more bare copper directly onto brass or plated terminals .
Come the mid 1980's we were having to change out millions of miles of the cables because they had become brittle and almost all the joints had ionised ,giving high resistances no matter what the differing material used for the jointing connectors were .
We have never to the best of my knowledge used aluminium for power supply cables due to the heating effect of poor joints plus the resistance is higher than copper so not only do you get the heat , it also costs you more to push the power round the national power grid system.
It's even becoming the regulated electrical norm that stranded copper or single conductor wire is now fitted with a crimp on alloy sleeve , to prevent oxidisation & corrosion between the copper cable and whatever it is fixed into ...... No more bare copper directly onto brass or plated terminals .