Is Aluminum Wiring Okay To Use

[NDL]

Never heard of them. For wire I tend to go to Home Depot, although for short runs I'd look at whatever I could get off Ebay or Amazon.

Thanks for the suggestion

There is a seller on ebay that sells high quality 100% copper wire at good prices. I have purchased from them several times. acdcwireandsupply

Thanks very much

Thats who I buy all my wire from, no junk from them only made in USA all copper and nice guys to deal with if you have any questions.

Appreciate the feedback

The root issue there was using wiring devices (switches, outlets, etc) that weren't rated for Al as well as not making proper (tight) connections.

Airbus uses Al(aluminum, not artificial intelligence) to wire up their airplanes, Toyota is using some aluminum wiring in the Prius and Mirai to save weight and reduce costs. Power distribution is Al, and the TV/data cable coming into your house/building is Cu-clad steel, which has proven its meddle with the cable companies.

the trouble is galvanic corrosion and the natural oxide layer that forms. The latter has been linked to house fires with many post-WWII homes - the oxide layer increases resistance and many fixtures were only rated for Cu/Cu-Al. As long as the connections are clean, tight and measures taken to reduce corrosion are taken I think you should be fine.

Thanks for taking the time to educate me

 

[SpitFire6]

For 12/24VDC Avoid Al wire.
Avoid aluminium wire. Its sole purpose is to save money over copper. In the lengths & current you will use it is a false economy.

 

[MITOK]

Aluminum is worse than copper for your application, IMO. It is more resistant to electrical flow, which means a greater voltage drop and more heat lost within your wiring. Aluminum will expand far more than copper in any given thermal cycle, and that introduces a cyclical stress in the wire itself, so it is more likely than copper to fail due to thermal cycling.

The reason to use aluminum is because it's cheaper and lighter than copper. You're not making an aircraft, nor a racecar, and you're not designing a mass-produced vehicle, so cost and weight shouldn't be major considerations.

 

[eljefino]

We never heard about what system this was running. Headlights? No way.

10 ga is hard to work with and plenty thick for most car apps. 10 ga aluminum should be derated to approx 12 ga copper due to its worse conductivity though. My saturn used 10 ga copper for the 100-amp alternator output.

Building standards about using 14 ga for <15 amps are for 50-foot runs with < 2% voltage loss. Cars can get by with thinner wire due to shorter runs and engineering-accpeted greater losses. Sound systems, headlights and starter cables are about the only sensible place anyone upgrades.

 

[JimPghPA]

In addition to the problems already mentioned, another thing to be concerned about is that copper and aluminum are on opposite ends of the electro-negativity chart. You can make a battery with strips of both, but when the two come in contact or near each other with moisture they will corrode. When aluminum was used in house wiring if copper was also used they could not be allowed to be connected to each other. If you had to connect them you had to use a steel connector that connector between them that connected to each and did not have them touch each other.

Nail copper gutters up with aluminum roofing nails and they will interact and the gutters will fall down.

Use copper or brass ( that has a lot of copper in it) pipe fittings for the cooling fittings of a $10,000 injection mold and in a little while you will have a $10,000 piece of corroded junk that is ruined. Copper and aluminum anything together is a very bad idea, unless you are trying to make a battery.