"Steven Shelikoff" wrote in message
...
On 19 Feb 2004 20:23:18 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote:
To start with, aluminum
is not that great of a conductor.
aluminum is in fact a pretty good conductor. Not as good as copper or
gold,
but still pretty good. Cheap car jumper cables are often aluminum.
Yeah, they used to use it in house wiring also until the CPSC reported
that houses with aluminum wiring were 55 times more likely to have an
electrical fire than copper wired houses.
Bye bye aluminum wiring (in most home applications). It has only a
little more than half the conductivity of copper and really is not that
great of a conductor. It's ok, but I wouldn't use it for anything
important.
Steve
Was cheap, was lightweight and caused fires as the aluminum flattens out
under presure from the connection screws. Then a loose connection and fire.
Is still used in high voltage power lines e.g. 500KV, as you can go longer
distances between towers. Still sucks as a conductor, but those bigger
wires can still carry the current and span a longer distance.
Bill