AL Magnet Wire?
 

Anyone know where I can find/ purchase a small qualtity
(Or any quantity) of Aluminum Magnet Wire?

Looking for 12 or 14 Ga AL magnet wire, square would be better, round is acceptable.

Paul (Kl7JG)

I'ts a power converter for my Solar RC plane.
The inductors and the wires carying the current to the motor are a
significant part of the power system weight.

Paul



On Wed, 05 May 2004 10:21:14 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:

wrote:
Anyone know where I can find/ purchase a small qualtity
(Or any quantity) of Aluminum Magnet Wire?

Looking for 12 or 14 Ga AL magnet wire, square would be better, round is acceptable.

Paul (Kl7JG)

Why? It's way less conductive than copper, so unless you're making an
air-wound coil that needs to save a few ounces I can't see how you'd
save anything using Al over Copper.

But I'm willing to be educated.

I'ts a power converter for my Solar RC plane.
The inductors and the wires carying the current to the motor are a
significant part of the power system weight.

Paul



On Wed, 05 May 2004 10:21:14 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:

wrote:
Anyone know where I can find/ purchase a small qualtity
(Or any quantity) of Aluminum Magnet Wire?

Looking for 12 or 14 Ga AL magnet wire, square would be better, round is acceptable.

Paul (Kl7JG)

Why? It's way less conductive than copper, so unless you're making an
air-wound coil that needs to save a few ounces I can't see how you'd
save anything using Al over Copper.

But I'm willing to be educated.

wrote:

I'ts a power converter for my Solar RC plane.
The inductors and the wires carying the current to the motor are a
significant part of the power system weight.

Paul



On Wed, 05 May 2004 10:21:14 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:


wrote:

Anyone know where I can find/ purchase a small qualtity
(Or any quantity) of Aluminum Magnet Wire?

Looking for 12 or 14 Ga AL magnet wire, square would be better, round is acceptable.

Paul (Kl7JG)

Why? It's way less conductive than copper, so unless you're making an
air-wound coil that needs to save a few ounces I can't see how you'd
save anything using Al over Copper.

But I'm willing to be educated.



I suspect that you have a choice between (a) losing more power to
resistive losses because of the lower conductivity of aluminum or (b)
_increasing_ the weight of your power converter because you've increased
the core size to save on resistive losses. You may be able to do better
with _silver_ wire and a smaller core, for all I know.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't make the attempt, I'm just
wondering if you've taken all the variables into account.

Have you already pushed the switcher frequency up to insane levels?
Looked into resonant topologies, all that stuff?

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

wrote:

I'ts a power converter for my Solar RC plane.
The inductors and the wires carying the current to the motor are a
significant part of the power system weight.

Paul



On Wed, 05 May 2004 10:21:14 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:


wrote:

Anyone know where I can find/ purchase a small qualtity
(Or any quantity) of Aluminum Magnet Wire?

Looking for 12 or 14 Ga AL magnet wire, square would be better, round is acceptable.

Paul (Kl7JG)

Why? It's way less conductive than copper, so unless you're making an
air-wound coil that needs to save a few ounces I can't see how you'd
save anything using Al over Copper.

But I'm willing to be educated.



I suspect that you have a choice between (a) losing more power to
resistive losses because of the lower conductivity of aluminum or (b)
_increasing_ the weight of your power converter because you've increased
the core size to save on resistive losses. You may be able to do better
with _silver_ wire and a smaller core, for all I know.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't make the attempt, I'm just
wondering if you've taken all the variables into account.

Have you already pushed the switcher frequency up to insane levels?
Looked into resonant topologies, all that stuff?

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Aluminum is the lowest weight conductor.
Copper, Silver and Gold have lower drop per unit area, but

Al is the lightest.


12Ga suqare Al has 2.260 ohms per K ft.
Weighs 7.28 lbs per K ft.

14 Ga Cu has 2.239 ohms per Kft
1Kft weighs 14.99lbs


6% more resistance at half the weight.

From the same chart
11 Ga Al has 1,755 ohms and a wt of 9.237

See:

http://www.mwswire.com/square.htm

I can buy wire from these guys' but they have a $100.00 minimum per line item.

Paul




On Wed, 05 May 2004 13:05:05 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:

wrote:

I'ts a power converter for my Solar RC plane.
The inductors and the wires carying the current to the motor are a
significant part of the power system weight.

Paul



On Wed, 05 May 2004 10:21:14 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:


wrote:

Anyone know where I can find/ purchase a small qualtity
(Or any quantity) of Aluminum Magnet Wire?

Looking for 12 or 14 Ga AL magnet wire, square would be better, round is acceptable.

Paul (Kl7JG)

Why? It's way less conductive than copper, so unless you're making an
air-wound coil that needs to save a few ounces I can't see how you'd
save anything using Al over Copper.

But I'm willing to be educated.



I suspect that you have a choice between (a) losing more power to
resistive losses because of the lower conductivity of aluminum or (b)
_increasing_ the weight of your power converter because you've increased
the core size to save on resistive losses. You may be able to do better
with _silver_ wire and a smaller core, for all I know.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't make the attempt, I'm just
wondering if you've taken all the variables into account.

Have you already pushed the switcher frequency up to insane levels?
Looked into resonant topologies, all that stuff?

Aluminum is the lowest weight conductor.
Copper, Silver and Gold have lower drop per unit area, but

Al is the lightest.


12Ga suqare Al has 2.260 ohms per K ft.
Weighs 7.28 lbs per K ft.

14 Ga Cu has 2.239 ohms per Kft
1Kft weighs 14.99lbs


6% more resistance at half the weight.

From the same chart
11 Ga Al has 1,755 ohms and a wt of 9.237

See:

http://www.mwswire.com/square.htm

I can buy wire from these guys' but they have a $100.00 minimum per line item.

Paul




On Wed, 05 May 2004 13:05:05 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:

wrote:

I'ts a power converter for my Solar RC plane.
The inductors and the wires carying the current to the motor are a
significant part of the power system weight.

Paul



On Wed, 05 May 2004 10:21:14 -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:


wrote:

Anyone know where I can find/ purchase a small qualtity
(Or any quantity) of Aluminum Magnet Wire?

Looking for 12 or 14 Ga AL magnet wire, square would be better, round is acceptable.

Paul (Kl7JG)

Why? It's way less conductive than copper, so unless you're making an
air-wound coil that needs to save a few ounces I can't see how you'd
save anything using Al over Copper.

But I'm willing to be educated.



I suspect that you have a choice between (a) losing more power to
resistive losses because of the lower conductivity of aluminum or (b)
_increasing_ the weight of your power converter because you've increased
the core size to save on resistive losses. You may be able to do better
with _silver_ wire and a smaller core, for all I know.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't make the attempt, I'm just
wondering if you've taken all the variables into account.

Have you already pushed the switcher frequency up to insane levels?
Looked into resonant topologies, all that stuff?

wrote:

Aluminum is the lowest weight conductor.
Copper, Silver and Gold have lower drop per unit area, but

Al is the lightest.


12Ga suqare Al has 2.260 ohms per K ft.
Weighs 7.28 lbs per K ft.

14 Ga Cu has 2.239 ohms per Kft
1Kft weighs 14.99lbs


6% more resistance at half the weight.

From the same chart
11 Ga Al has 1,755 ohms and a wt of 9.237

See:

http://www.mwswire.com/square.htm

I can buy wire from these guys' but they have a $100.00 minimum per line item.

Paul


-- snip --

Right. Aluminum has better conductivity per gram than copper. I
understood that even before you original post.

I also know that aluminum also has much _worse_ conductivity per unit
_volume_. And that the core that you're going to put it on can probably
accept a finite volume of wire. Since 12 gauge wire has about 50% more
area that means that you're only going to be able to put on 2/3 as many
turns, meaning your inductance is going to be about half of what you'd
get with copper wire. Even with a toroidal core you're still left with
about 2/3 your inductance.

That means that you need to go to a bigger core to get your inductance
up. Not only does this mean that you'll be adding a lot of mass, but a
bigger core will require more wire, so when you're done you won't be
getting a 2x savings in wire mass, and you'll more than likely have an
inductor that is actually heavier than the copper alternative.

So, to repeat, have you run _all_ the numbers and verified that you'll
achieve a savings?

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com