copper clad Al wire

[jab]

Hello all

I have been scrapping out parts that I will need down the road to construct a wind generator.   I have harvested copper wire out of transformers that appeared to be copper but on closer inspection was copper coating on AL wire.

The question;   Would this wire be usable as coil wire for the generator?   Ok but not as good as 100% copper?   Or junk, scrap it out?

Thanks All
Jim

[bob golding]

that sounds like insulation varnish over the aluminium wire. ally is not good to use for coils as it will corrode,plus you cant solder it  or to be precise, you cant solder it as easily as copper.

[XeonPony]

that and its megnetic properties are craptastical.

[jab]

Thank you for your replys.

I did some more scraping on the wire ends and it is copper colored varnish not copper.

Thank you for your time
Jim

[Dispatcherjinn]

Greetings jab : Years ago we had many long posts on Re purposed Materials. even now a cheap wal mart micro wave or cheap auto charger fail often due the reasoning most often a burn out using Al wire in there windings. Trash except the round magnets. Then keep in mind the tight turns on a transformer and use good care to avoid a kink in the wire and if you find a total fold of the wire, your best to cut it at the kink because that will become the failure point when you over work a coil. Any doubt you can run a test to see for your self by taking a section with the kink and put some tension on it and heat it with some resistance and it will break on the kink no matter how smooth you roll it out.  When rewinding your coils a can of good engine block enamel is good to have to coat each wind serving to both help replace any breaches in the insulation and your coil is then nicely glued as you wind and no tapping needed in most cases. Use a flam-less torch as you unwind and take care not to cook the enamel coatings. After decaids of collecting wire i still forget my rule at times and will waist a hour on a unwind to find missed the facts it was Al wire. I even found some on CRT field coils explaining why the tv or monitor found its way to the junk pile. How ever, the CRTs and  TVs are the best source of decent magwire and much easier to collect and very clean. I have a rig with extending arms to hold the coils and then rewind to a can of zig zag tobacco and count each turn as a foot , then leaving me a much easier to work with and store in handy 5 inch hanks.  Best scrap a good inch off a end to see the white or copper inside before spending the time on scrap yard sales !
  Hope this provides some in-site and ideas.
Bob

[dnix71]

There are guys in the 'hood here who drive around looking for discarded tvs and crt computer monitors. By 'guys' I mean complete @ssh0les. They bust off the yoke, take the copper winding and leave a pile of broken glass and plastic behind.

There is so much money now in scrap metal that a small pickup truck bed full of old appliances will get $75 to $100. The high price of most metals is one of the reason aluminum is being used for winding transformers now instead of copper.

And like Jinn said, if you kink aluminum wire once it's ruined at that spot and has to be spliced.

[Dispatcherjinn]

I find that true in copper to dinx, if you run your finger nail along the wire and find it was once completely folded you can see with calipers it took a dent and fail you later on after your build is in operation and gets stressed out , the week link !  I would hate see some one go to all that trouble just to have a dead spot later wiping out a coil. Hate to admit, but been there-do that
  I spent many my years a tile setter and glass fabricator and made a lot of fancy glass tile with the back glass of CRTs. Most of the faces were leaded but that had use and value but most of mine went to the local land fill.
  In my region the scrappers now have you stand with your copper turn ins and you smile as you get you picture taken with it.
I just don't get it any more? copper is way down and i hear the crack is way up? yet the fools can afford cordless saws alls and forget there's copper in the compressors of the aircon units the gut out on the road side like they do with the deer they poach ?
  Urban Miners is what there calling it now. Have saws all and a new car lot= a quick few hundred in platinum. Try sell a catiletic converter now days? Well if you have the time, to do the time ha ha ha
 What a world huh
Bob the 2 bit Jinn

[dnix71]

The EPA regulates catalytic converter manufacture and sales. Stealing a cataytic converter is a federal crime because it defeats the emission controls on the vehicle it was removed from. The penalty is $25k per offense. The shops that do repairs on emission control/exhaust systems have to keep records to protect themselves. The scrap price for converters is so high that any car with one can be sold for crushing simply because the converter can be removed first and sold. It used to be you had to pay to get rid of a car if it was in rough shape.

http://www.ksn.com/2013/06/07/21905-autosave/  This man was trying to steal wire and got fried. 7200 volt wire is probably aluminum anyway. He wouldn't have gotten as much for it if it.

Even cardboard gets stolen for resale. Places that have a bailer/compactor have to keep the bails locked up or the self-employed will take it before the person that was supposed to recycle it. Some recyclers don't care if the homeless bring in stolen scrap and some do.

[Dispatcherjinn]

Oui ! Watch the self employed stuff now LOL Born with RA I spent my whole life creating my own income without accepting disability
 Buy yahh on them boys in the hood. I got my share and my shop is always on there radar, They even go as fare as giving kids cell phones as look out's. You see a kid hanging on a corner on the phone everyday you can be sure there working your neck of the woods.
  I made good relations with all my local salvage company's and now can fax or email pic's what the hoodys took lately but as far as the law? Worthless. Mostly Sheriffs around here so to much politics and no law enforcement and the deputy's and used more as collections agents and revenue generators. Even worse ware i am at there are only so many MHIC's issued any given time and to handyman a tile job or wood floor will get the sheriff up your tail faster then betting the neighbors kid the look out ! or staging cock fights  !
  So all my years studying my dissablitys and my Botany I came up with a right effective horse remedy for breathing and reduction in athletes lung bleeding and the race commissions love my stuff which is unusual , coz they even see my stuff legal to race on. And the common Laysex that stops the bleeding but reduces there life is being band a few states at a time.
  So I aim to make the best of the herbal bizz tell the pharmaceuticals destroy that last avenue to my means to support myself and by then hope to die my hair black and develop a Italian accent and open a pizza parlor in the central Vasyean Sea of the Philippines where it is no crime to to make opportunity ! ! !  Opps
  But back to jab's topic: When wire is drawn it develops a gran so to speak, like pvc pipe. it cracks from freezing you can not expect to replace just the broken area. It has a long stringy grain and even though you replace a foot, the next freeze the entire section shatters! A kink you can feel you can bet the wire took internal damages being stretch to far on the outside of the band and compressed on the inside and as well if you have a good set of calipers you often can measure at the straightened kink and see often it is now smaller at that point then the rest of the wire. Like a 2 by 4 stud stretcher for a bad cut, you can not unstretch a wire !
  As for that aluminum wire ? Make Celtic jewelry, become famous !  AL is likely the next easiest metal to recast next to lead and opon saying that got me thinking, maybe casting a retainer for Hard drive magnets stator? Humm ? off to a new topic
g day