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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) |
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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 |
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 |
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 |
wrote in message ... http://www.mwswire.com/square.htm I can buy wire from these guys' but they have a $100.00 minimum per line item. Time to make some letterhead and see if you can get an engineering sample. Tell them you're planning to publish the circuit or whatever it takes. Put a phone number in the letter and advise others who may answer the phone to expect a call from their sales dept inquiring about future quantities. I don't recommend people do this simply to avoid buying a 2N2222, but it looks as though you have a legitimate purpose in mind. All you have to lose is a stamp. Good luck. 73, "PM" |
wrote in message ... http://www.mwswire.com/square.htm I can buy wire from these guys' but they have a $100.00 minimum per line item. Time to make some letterhead and see if you can get an engineering sample. Tell them you're planning to publish the circuit or whatever it takes. Put a phone number in the letter and advise others who may answer the phone to expect a call from their sales dept inquiring about future quantities. I don't recommend people do this simply to avoid buying a 2N2222, but it looks as though you have a legitimate purpose in mind. All you have to lose is a stamp. Good luck. 73, "PM" |
ok,
Can you tell us how long will the wire be that you are winding on your coil ? I agree that the smaller ga copper or silver could be the better way to go. What is total weight of the coil using the al wire compared to cu or ag ? kyle 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 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? |
ok,
Can you tell us how long will the wire be that you are winding on your coil ? I agree that the smaller ga copper or silver could be the better way to go. What is total weight of the coil using the al wire compared to cu or ag ? kyle 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 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? |
Can't you just up the frequency of the converter a bit? That would reduce
the flux density in the transformer, or the filter choke inductance, depending on the type of converter you use. A reduced flux density would allow the use of smaller cross section magnetics and less turns of wire. The net result is a saving in weight and cost. Then you may consider the use of copper wire. The wire losses only go up as the square root of the frequency for solid wire, and the wire resistance is primarily determined by skin effect once you get up past a few KHz in frequency. In fact you will have less total losses using copper Litz wire of a size smaller than using solid aluminum wire. If your current requirements are low you can "manufacture" your own small gage Litz wire of sorts by twisting together a number of strands of fine solid round magnet wire. The size of the wire strands depends on the frequency of the current the wire must carry. If your requirements are real small some of the Litz wire manufactures may have some left over scrap of a type you can use they would sell you. http://www.mwswire.com/litzmain.htm http://www.litz-wire.com/ http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sullivan/litzwire/litz.html (Litz wire theory, solor powered car app.) -- Leland C. Scott KC8LDO Wireless Network Mobile computing on the go brought to you by Micro$oft wrote in message ... 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? |
Can't you just up the frequency of the converter a bit? That would reduce
the flux density in the transformer, or the filter choke inductance, depending on the type of converter you use. A reduced flux density would allow the use of smaller cross section magnetics and less turns of wire. The net result is a saving in weight and cost. Then you may consider the use of copper wire. The wire losses only go up as the square root of the frequency for solid wire, and the wire resistance is primarily determined by skin effect once you get up past a few KHz in frequency. In fact you will have less total losses using copper Litz wire of a size smaller than using solid aluminum wire. If your current requirements are low you can "manufacture" your own small gage Litz wire of sorts by twisting together a number of strands of fine solid round magnet wire. The size of the wire strands depends on the frequency of the current the wire must carry. If your requirements are real small some of the Litz wire manufactures may have some left over scrap of a type you can use they would sell you. http://www.mwswire.com/litzmain.htm http://www.litz-wire.com/ http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sullivan/litzwire/litz.html (Litz wire theory, solor powered car app.) -- Leland C. Scott KC8LDO Wireless Network Mobile computing on the go brought to you by Micro$oft wrote in message ... 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? |
"Tim Wescott" wrote in message ... 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 Perhaps use silver-plated copper in the inductor and aluminium in the busbars. Nothing to say that you have to use only the one material throughout. |
"Tim Wescott" wrote in message ... 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 Perhaps use silver-plated copper in the inductor and aluminium in the busbars. Nothing to say that you have to use only the one material throughout. |
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