Hi,
I faced corrosion problem in my speaker cables (copper clad aluminum cable), after some times there is some white color powder at the end of the cable and wire breaks easily, if we touch it breaks, no continuity speakers is not playing due to this problem.
why the speaker cable become like this, what is the reason for this, what should i do to avoid this or what should i look when i buy speaker cable next time.
i need someone help to understand the problem.
I faced corrosion problem in my speaker cables (copper clad aluminum cable), after some times there is some white color powder at the end of the cable and wire breaks easily, if we touch it breaks, no continuity speakers is not playing due to this problem.
why the speaker cable become like this, what is the reason for this, what should i do to avoid this or what should i look when i buy speaker cable next time.
i need someone help to understand the problem.
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The problem is corrosion due to dissimilar metals. The copper is scraped a bit when the crimp is made which reveals the aluminium underneath. Aluminuim when combined with steel (the crimp) is quite bad for galvanic corrosion. If you live in a high humidity area it makes it worse.
The solution is to not use CCA wire, it's cheap rubbish.
The solution is to not use CCA wire, it's cheap rubbish.
Your flag says India, and that is a very tropical high humidity area for electrical wiring.
richie00boy nailed it that that particular type of wiring is rubbish for the most part, and especially in your location on the planet with its weather effects and such.
There are better wire types out there such as nickle hard plated copper wiring where the copper conductor has a nickle plating on its entire outside surface area. But this may not be locally available and if so quite expensive since it is used primarily in Chemical manufacturing plants and such like Caustic plants where everything is nickle hard including all the plumbing which for the most part is butt welded nickle piping since its caustic corrosion resistant.
OFC < oxygen free copper > will not yield you any better as it will surely corrode in the typical high humidity environment you live in, so don't be fooled into buying high price specialized copper wiring of that type either. It will surely be green in a week. Since it is chemically pure and ion hungry to start with.
In the US we got a thing here called Cu-Al Aid, < pronounced kool-aid> Electricians here in the US use this copper aluminum contact grease to prevent such situations or at least put off the effects for a extended period of time, thus extending the lifespan of copper wiring.
This contact grease and some self sealing heat shrink tubing may be your cheap way out or even a permanent fix. Either way it will extend your problems way down the road better then what your using currently.
Cu-Al Aid is available at just about any electrical supply house here in the US, and maybe even in your country < I have never been to India so my best guess > It is an industrial chemical used primarily in high power distribution such as 480 three phase power distribution and such where high heat and humidity and corrosion issues eat away at electrical wiring contacts.
Your not the only person with such issues so there are some industrial solutions, some reasonably priced and some not. This contact grease and the shrink sleeve might serve you well enough for reasonable price, but it may just be cheaper to toss out the wiring on a regular basis and call it service maintenance.
There are financial reasons for everything so its sort of up to you what is reasonable and what is plain crazy expensive and just not worth considering.
richie00boy has your start though toss out that cheap wiring to begin with and start over with something better one way or another. keeping it all sealed up from the elements will always extend service life and shrink sleeve or even electrical tape is fairly cheap and worldwide available last I checked. The contact grease maybe not so much as its primarily used in the US and is UL approved that does not mean its accepted worldwide.... hope some of this helps...😉
richie00boy nailed it that that particular type of wiring is rubbish for the most part, and especially in your location on the planet with its weather effects and such.
There are better wire types out there such as nickle hard plated copper wiring where the copper conductor has a nickle plating on its entire outside surface area. But this may not be locally available and if so quite expensive since it is used primarily in Chemical manufacturing plants and such like Caustic plants where everything is nickle hard including all the plumbing which for the most part is butt welded nickle piping since its caustic corrosion resistant.
OFC < oxygen free copper > will not yield you any better as it will surely corrode in the typical high humidity environment you live in, so don't be fooled into buying high price specialized copper wiring of that type either. It will surely be green in a week. Since it is chemically pure and ion hungry to start with.
In the US we got a thing here called Cu-Al Aid, < pronounced kool-aid> Electricians here in the US use this copper aluminum contact grease to prevent such situations or at least put off the effects for a extended period of time, thus extending the lifespan of copper wiring.
This contact grease and some self sealing heat shrink tubing may be your cheap way out or even a permanent fix. Either way it will extend your problems way down the road better then what your using currently.
Cu-Al Aid is available at just about any electrical supply house here in the US, and maybe even in your country < I have never been to India so my best guess > It is an industrial chemical used primarily in high power distribution such as 480 three phase power distribution and such where high heat and humidity and corrosion issues eat away at electrical wiring contacts.
Your not the only person with such issues so there are some industrial solutions, some reasonably priced and some not. This contact grease and the shrink sleeve might serve you well enough for reasonable price, but it may just be cheaper to toss out the wiring on a regular basis and call it service maintenance.
There are financial reasons for everything so its sort of up to you what is reasonable and what is plain crazy expensive and just not worth considering.
richie00boy has your start though toss out that cheap wiring to begin with and start over with something better one way or another. keeping it all sealed up from the elements will always extend service life and shrink sleeve or even electrical tape is fairly cheap and worldwide available last I checked. The contact grease maybe not so much as its primarily used in the US and is UL approved that does not mean its accepted worldwide.... hope some of this helps...😉
Yes, these are steel fast-on terminals. You need stranded copper wire rather than aluminum.
If you have to use this wire, cut off a couple of inches at each end and do not use lugs. Bend the ends into a U shape and connect directly to screw terminals.
If that is not possible, use a short length of copper wire for the fast-on terminals, and solder/insulate the other ends of this wire to the aluminum wires.
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Thank you so much. your information is more helpful.it make me to understand some terminology.
And also the corrosion is more worst at Lugs side compare to other side. I am just thinking does it due to Coating or plating of the lugs is poor(due to this the wire contact with the metal). this just my guess.
And also the corrosion is more worst at Lugs side compare to other side. I am just thinking does it due to Coating or plating of the lugs is poor(due to this the wire contact with the metal). this just my guess.
In the US in cars we use gold and platinum plated lugs and none of this stuff happens, but you must use either of these more Nobel metals to fend off corrosion without some alternate chemical strategy in use.
So yes it could be the plating metals and it could be the moisture and the materials combining to do as you see in the pictures, Gold and platinum connections for 12 volt do not suffer from this problem unless you scuff off the thin gold or platinum plating.
That's not a failure "because coppr didn't protect aluminum" but quite the contrary, copper destroys aluminum on contact and in presence of humidity.
If that were a pure aluminum wire you would have no problem at all 😱
To go a little deeper: one technique to protect a metal against corrosion is to plate it or put it in contact with another metal which will "suicide" to protect it, which is often called a "sacrificial metal"..
I guess that name explains it all😉
Usual is zinc plating over iron/steel.
Besides "looking nice" , in presence of corrosion the zinc corrodes first to save iron , turning into a white dust.
In ships, they usually add some zinc "bricks" to protect the ship hull.
Problem is that in your metals pair, the sacrificial metal is aluminum 🙁
So why copper plate aluminum at all?
In some cases, to make it solderable with standard soldering irons and electronics solder, such as in speakers voice coils.
No big problem there because the joint then gets covered and insulated by Epoxy or at least some adhesive.
But others use copper plated aluminum just to save $$$ and cheat you thinking it's 100% copper.
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