WONDERFUL! Aluminum Chinese Wire

[MEXICOWANDERER]

They did it. Small items may have tiny single-strand aluminum battery power leads.

25 50 SMD LED plate lamps. The furnished wire extensions with plug have single-strand aluminum wire leads.

STRIP

SCRAPE

Not copper? Avoid using the entension.

Honorable Chinese lack of ethics...

[Camper93]

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.

[JiminDenver]

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.

[Dusty_R]

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

[wa8yxm]

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.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

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.

How about out-of-the-box?

No contact. No lamp. Scraped it. Light. Yanked the entension hurled it.

[turbojimmy]

My '70s-era house has all aluminum wiring. It hasn't burned down yet. But I also have a hard time with remodeling projects and replacing switches and fixtures.

I'm also pretty sure my '94 and '96 Caddy must have had some (not all) aluminum wiring in places. I can't prove it, but I would come across what appeared to be solid aluminum wires in odd places.

[mlts22]

Selling CCA as copper is like selling a paper straw for a fuel line. This is definitely fraud, and can seriously hurt/kill.

It would be great if aluminum alloys getting closer, but AFIAK, they still require one gauge more wire than copper... and one has to take extreme care at connections, or else the wires will corrode and the connection catches fire.

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

[CKNSLS]

To say China is pushing the technology envelope on this forum is next to blasphemous!

[time2roll]

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.

[3_tons]

Could it be that they are tinned copper to help resist marine corrosion??

[BFL13]

The "10 gauge" MC4 pigtails on my 230w solar panel turned out to be aluminum wire. I found out when I cut the ends off to connect them to some #8 wire I have.

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.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

CKNSLS wrote:
I am sure they said "Made in China" somewhere on the package BEFORE you purchased them.......



Caution---CHINA bashing thread ahead!!!

You are absolutely correct...

My error...

Shudda opted for the ones manufactured in Furgueson

[CKNSLS]

I am sure they said "Made in China" somewhere on the package BEFORE you purchased them.......



Caution---CHINA bashing thread ahead!!!

[KJINTF]

It's all about Cost aka $$$$$$