WONDERFUL! Aluminum Chinese Wire

smkettner wrote:
I thought aluminum alloys were actually moving closer to the usability of copper.
Is it really about cheap or is China pushing the technology forward?

Besides Americans shop primarily on price so what do you expect?
Please post when the item fails due to the aluminum wire.

There are many reasons Aluminum will never be as good as Copper for wire.

First: Though both, over time, go bad, Aluminum does it faster
Higher resistance for the same size wire, so you need bigger wire
Solder does not stick well (NOTE: You can solder aluminum but it takes either special solder or special methods or both)

AND the biggie: When you mix two metals (IE: clamp Aluminum to brass or to copper) bad things happen.. Copper to brass theory says it should happen too but the difference between Copper and Brass (A copper alloy) is not that great so it is not that bad. MOST fixtures, the connections are brass.

At one time, maybe still there was a copper coated/plated wire, maybe romex.
Some of the heavy copper conductors/wires are tinned. They could be confused for aluminum.
It appears to me, from experience, that if an aluminum conductor is going to be near or fully loaded, it ought to be 2 sizes larger.

Dusty

BFL13 wrote:


I wonder if the 25 ft extensions you can get for those solar panel MC4s are also aluminum. If so, you need to "adjust" your voltage drop calculations to al vs cu.

The 25 and 50 ft 10 gauge MC4 extensions I run the portables with have been copper.

No wonder our economy is taking so long to recover, we keep buying Chinese******for the sake of saving a few pennies vs. buying products made right here at home. At the end of the day, what have you saved when you have to replaced it more often.
Sorry for the rant.

Camper93 wrote:
No wonder our economy is taking so long to recover, we keep buying Chinese******for the sake of saving a few pennies vs. buying products made right here at home. At the end of the day, what have you saved when you have to replaced it more often.
Sorry for the rant.

This is what I see. USA company. Vends product but product made in China
Price is 300% of eBay price. I do not have enough pension to keep a 300/K yr suit & tie in the level of lifestyle to which they are accustomed. These porkers live by the mantra WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?" I shall do the same.

The Chinese factories just do what they are told. Spec cheap junk, they will be happy to make it for you. Spec quality, and you will get it.

The ironic thing is that if a company is willing to pay for decent quality goods, then the advantage of having it made in China disappears.

A while back, I was doing research to have an IT product made which required some intricate robotics. If I wanted it done right, the cost was pretty much the same if it was made in the US, Germany, Japan, Austria, Australia, China, Canada, Sweden, Russia, or France. If I wanted it absolutely dirt cheap... China was the "go to" country.

I wonder how it would sell making a US company that did basic, high quality wiring (and other electrical parts) production, and had an attitude of "this stuff is for the cool kids, and not for you." I wouldn't be surprised to see the smug attitude actually sell decent quality wiring products in large quantities, to the point where people were basing their buying decision for houses on a haughty brand name that gives the middle finger to everyone, but makes decent products.

Mex do you have a link to the failed product?

Not sure I understood if the aluminum wire failed or the light itself.
Or were you modifying the item to suit your needs?

mlts22 wrote:
If aluminum wires did work, houses wouldn't be targets for copper thieves.

I think at this point you are correct BUT the additional use opf aluminum would probably drive up its cost. We save aluminum cans more for the environment but recently sold 72 pounds of cans for 36 dollars!! That is 50 cents per pounds

Charlie D. wrote:

mlts22 wrote:
If aluminum wires did work, houses wouldn't be targets for copper thieves.

I think at this point you are correct BUT the additional use opf aluminum would probably drive up its cost. We save aluminum cans more for the environment but recently sold 72 pounds of cans for 36 dollars!! That is 50 cents per pounds

Every home I've owned for the past fifty years had aluminum wire for the underground service to the house. (I only owned one home with aluminum and copper clad aluminum interior wiring. Kept connections tight - never had an issue.)

I purchased 100 of the plates and have long since lost the vendor. Chinese vendors don't even know which of 10,000 small factories in Gaosedong province makes their lights.

The lamps came with adapters for cob lights, 1156 etc. It's the adapter wires that have single strand 26 gauge aluminum wire. The connection failed at the plug where aluminum met copper pins.