Wired (Copper clad Alu wire)

Jaguarjoe · Nov 7, 2010

There's a new kind of wire on the market now, called CCA. Its a bad idea:

**broken link removed**

dknguyen · Nov 8, 2010

Hard to blame them for wanting to test the line after you see some audiophiles buying ridiculously overpriced snake-oil cables.

tcmtech · Nov 8, 2010

That "new kind of wire" has been around for several decades now.

It was and still is common in welder transformers, especially during the 70's and 80's, and its hated by every scrap dealer in existence. It looks like copper wire and was commonly advertised as copper wire but the truth is its worth less than aluminum wire pound for pound when scrapping it out.

ben7 · Nov 8, 2010

Aluminum wires will overheat and burn your house down. I wonder if this new wire will do the same.

audioguru · Nov 8, 2010

Years ago I owned a house that was wired with aliminum wire. Every light switch and receptacle had loose screws trying to hold the wires because aluminum "creaps". Gravity causes the wire at the top to get thinner and "the flowing of aluminum" causes screws to get looser.

Aluminum is a poorer conductor than copper so the aluminum wires were thicker then they did not fit on the screws that were designed for thinner copper wires. They cheated and used parts made for copper and the aluminum did not fit. Many switches and receptacles had the insulation on the aluminum wires burnt off.

ben7 · Nov 8, 2010

audioguru said:
Years ago I owned a house that was wired with aliminum wire. Every light switch and receptacle had loose screws trying to hold the wires because aluminum "creaps". Gravity causes the wire at the top to get thinner and "the flowing of aluminum" causes screws to get looser.

Aluminum is a poorer conductor than copper so the aluminum wires were thicker then they did not fit on the screws that were designed for thinner copper wires. They cheated and used parts made for copper and the aluminum did not fit. Many switches and receptacles had the insulation on the aluminum wires burnt off.

Good way for a house fire to start like I said.

Birdman Adam · Nov 8, 2010

I have some friends whose cabin burned down from aluminum wire... If its not connected perfectly, bad stuff happens!

This 'copper-clad aluminum' wire is also somewhat plaguing the CCTV industry. For proper signal pure copper should be used as the center conductor on common RG59 cable, but so many are being tricked into buying what looks like copper, but isnt. The aluminum degrades the signal much more and is more susceptible to interference. Of course it is cheaper, which is why many fall for it.

Wired (Copper clad Alu wire)

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