Copper Wire and its Ideal Alternatives

The rising price of copper is alarming; since we are so much dependent on the metal the major industrialists in the electrical and electronic domain are struggling to keep the costs of their products low.

The overall price of raw copper has seen a significant increase, infact it has almost doubled over the years. The increase in the price of the raw copper consequently leads to the rise in the price of the manufactured gadgets and machines like electronic devices, cars, etc. This is majorly because copper wire, copper power cable, silver copper wire, tin copper wire, etc. plays a vital role in the manufacturing of these machineries as well as gadgets.

Considering the depleting reserves of copper, many companies are now involved in researching and looking for other kinds of wire and alternatives that are more cost-conscious and available in plenty. One important example of such a product is Copper-Clad Aluminum; this wire costs nearly half the price the pure copper cable does. This is considered to be a very good alternative to costly copper.

Copper-Clad Aluminum wire refers to the aluminum wire which are coated using a very thin copper layer. The very thin layer of copper ensures that the amount of copper utilized is minimal thus curtailing the need to pay heavy amount for the depleting natural resource.

Though copper power cable, silver copper wire, tin copper wire and other copper products are still being used widely across various domains, the rise of alternatives to replace the same is slowly on rise. The construction as well as the gauge sizes of CCA wire resembles copper wire. The strand size as well as count can differ, however insulating material used is similar to PVC in copper wire.

One important difference between CCA and copper is related to resistance. Since copper stands to be the best conductor after silver it serves as the most popular material used in electrical conducting. Since CCA has a small bit of copper its cable has nearly 34% higher resistance as compared to the pure copper cable having the gauge as well as construction.

Since the resistance present in the conductor creates a limiting factor in terms of maximum power delivery however many tests show that CCA wire serves its purpose very well when highest current applications are used. In fact a good way to use CCA would be to replace the copper wire with a CCA cable having a larger gauge size.