-rant- chinesium wires - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2023, 11:05:35 pm
content: Cursed to the 100th generation be they who invented wires made from chinesium.I was trying to quickly cobble up something and used a few of those "dupont" connector breadboard wires i had laying around. the kind that come as a ribbon cable. i needed the female part on one side and simply want some switches on the other side. Quick hook-up i thought.I tried soldering and it didn't go well. The solder did not "stick". I thought maybe the solder had gone bad ( flux goes bad... and this was very old solder roll ).Maybe those wires were corroded.. so i dipped them in agressive rosin flux i had laying around. No avail. They kept breaking off and the solder was all blobby around them.Turns out these things are made from aluminum !I stripped several others and some of them looked like copper, but that turned out to be plated on... they too did not solder properly. I have no idea what that stuff is. i'll call it chinesium.What drunken retard has come up with this chinesium alloy ? I spent two hours trying to solder 4 wires. In the end i collected all those things i had laying around and tossed them in the garbage can. never again. I'm not going to delve into those knock-off "dupont" connectors.

author: Zoli
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2023, 11:47:52 pm
content: It's called "Copper-Clad Aluminum Wire"; once you've burnt down the copper, is useless.Here's an US made:https://www.rfsworld.com/pim/product/html/LCF12-50J(core conductor).

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 10, 2023, 11:56:14 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 10, 2023, 11:05:35 pmA bean counter no doubt.Reasonably OK for intended use - but obviously not for 'extended' applications.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 12:04:46 am
content: lol buy the crimp tool its like ascending to a higher plane of existence its like becoming the q of breadboards

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 12:05:21 am
content: "You get what you paid for."(Old Chinese saying).

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 12:33:10 am
content: Quote from: Benta on September 11, 2023, 12:05:21 amTake the money, close the shop and let them try to complain. (New chinese saying)note : chinese CE logo: Crap for Export

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 12:36:16 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on September 11, 2023, 12:04:46 ami have it. too finnickey. my eyes don't cooperate anymore. That's why i wanted to use the pre-crimped wires. i have had a bundle of very long ones ( 30cm) . snip one end off, solder the long end to the switches , peg the other end on the pinheader in the power supply ( i was trying to fix a special power supply for a pool cleaner. it has a timer built in and the membrane keyboard had given up ( another one of those horrible inventions... no tactile feedback and when you leave it in the sun it stops working after a few years . the topcoat cracs, moisture gets in and the contacts corrode away.) what should have been a 10 minute job took half the effing day..

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 12:38:19 am
content: I encountered this type of wire in a CRT TV degaussing coil. impossible to solderhowever in weight sensitive applications like a large diameter coil on a drone or hand handheld loop.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 01:17:15 am
content: sounds like you need to upgrade to a pneumatic crimper with the wire positioning jig if you can't stand aligning the tiny wiresi bet in the long run its still cheaper given hours spent hahaI too am starting not to like anything under 10 awg for crimping. not for foldy crimpsnow if you can get a machine pin dupont that might make things a little easier then those fucking folds. you just gotta put it in, instead of put it in and hold it steady.i know the positioners for foldy crimps are not worth shit even premium brands

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 11:06:26 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 10, 2023, 11:05:35 pmI once had to solder a new DC barrel plug onto that copper clad aluminum crap. Oh that was a chore.The problem, as Zoli mentioned, is that once you’ve dissolved away the copper layer, it’s game over for that segment and you have to strip away to fresh wire. It is possible to solder this wire, but you have to beextremelyfast: quickly tin the wire, tin the mating surface and preload it with enough solder, add flux, and then reflow the wire into the mating surface as quickly as humanly possible, using as large a tip as possible. What can also help is to use a solder alloy that contains copper, since that will slow down the rate of copper dissolution.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 11:13:04 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on September 11, 2023, 01:17:15 amAre you aware of any machined “dupont” style terminals? All the machined ones I’m aware of use round pins and sockets, which don’t mate anywhere near as firmly as top-quality stamped terminals (Amphenol Mini-PV and Dubox, Molex SL, etc.). Even round sockets that are stated to be compatible with 0.025” square pins don’t have nearly the same removal force.A machined terminal made for square pins would be awesome…(If one already has the indent crimpers for machined pins, at least it’s possible to make male terminals by using a bit of brass or phosphor bronze tube as a butt splice, crimping both the wire and a standard square pin into the tube.)

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 11:30:36 am
content: Quote from: tooki on September 11, 2023, 11:13:04 amTektronix used to have dual tongue type header connectors on their logic analyzer. Works fantastic. I have never seen these pin header connector for sale though.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 11:36:31 am
content: Its even possible to solder plain aluminum with ordinary SnPb or Pb-free solder without special 'aluminum' flux. A freshly cleaned aluminum surface is solderable, but one with a layer of aluminium oxide is not. Unfortunately the aluminum oxide layer forms extremely rapidly in air at elevated temperatures, and in minutes at room temperature, so you have to exclude air from the work - either with an oil stable at soldering temperatures or with copious quantities of a good gel flux.What does this mean for soldering CCA wire?As Tooki mentioned you have to be fast getting the wire tinned. If heavily tinned, you can then reflow it to form a joint with a previously heavily tinned terminal. Use plenty of flux. However that copper layer dissolves in the solder very quickly, so if the solder film gets scraped off while reflowing it, the exposed aluminium will oxidise and will be difficult or impossible to re-tin.Then there's the issue of stranded wire embrittlement at the surface of the joint. Aluminum is less ductile than copper, its copper coating will have been scavenged by the solder, necking each strand down and leaving a thin ring of exposed aluminum, and aluminum in contact with copper is extremely vulnerable to corrosion, so unless you get *all* the flux residue cleaned off and the joint coated with lacquer to exclude air and moisture, you are setting yourself up for failure if you solder stranded CCA.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 11:38:33 am
content: I feel your pain. Once we had to strip apart industrial equipment and trash all the wiring in it because it was made from this crap. The wires were supposed to be rated for 50A and made from this old thing called copper. But the purchaser wanted to save some money. So we a paid for it 7 times. Buy, Assemble, ship to Europe, Test, Disassemble in a hurry, Fail to deliver in time, Buy proper cable in a hurry, Assemble by engineers. On hundreds of cables.Though as I remember that was some sort of coated steel wires.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 04:22:50 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 10, 2023, 11:05:35 pmWhere did you buy these? Local or from China? My experience is that the stuff you source from China directly (through Aliexpress, Amazon, Ebay) is of higher quality compared to Chinese stuff you buy locally.

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 05:20:00 pm
content: Not another thread with the same thing.100 wires for $3! - Damn, they're bad!Yes!Last ones worked only for 1 insertion.Disassemble, bent the contacts again, good for 2 more insertions.The males broke upon inserting, they were just too weak.But at least they could be soldered.

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 10:15:06 pm
content: I know this is extreme, but I avoid buying anything new from China.If a specific product seems to address a problem,i’ll look for a recent second hand unit nearby.Thus only one cash payment is sent to China, and e-waste is reduced.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 10:23:05 pm
content: Quote from: Zoli on September 10, 2023, 11:47:52 pmOr even as-is, it can be useless. CCA is very popular in cheap ethernet installation cable nowadays. Always look out for "CCA". No datasheet? Don't buy.And once you get it.. strip the wire, put an exactoknife into a wirestrand (hopefully solid wire), and double-check if its copper all around (and inside).I've read horror stories where people bought "Cat6e" cables for 10Gbit networking that turned out to be CCA. Couldn't even reach 1Gbit at a couple of meters. Let alone 10Gbit @ 100m as of spec. *coughs*, what is a spec worth anyhow..IT shops are absolutely filled with CCA cables. I ended up getting Cat7 cable the other day, because after skipping all the CCA crap, it was cheaper than all the other Cat6e offerings a local shop had..

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 10:50:07 pm
content: During the 60s and 70s in the USA they were using aluminum wire for some home electrical installs. There are all sorts of issues with installation and terminating that causes it to not meet modern code. But there are still tons of houses out there from that time with AL wires in the walls.I guess there is a "new formulation" that actually does meets code, but still sounds sketchy:https://www.copperweld.com/buildingwire

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 11:28:05 pm
content: I once purchased "high-temperature" industrial wire from a surplus dealer, only to find out it was nickel or nickel-plated and hard to solder.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2023, 11:47:29 pm
content: If I'm stuck for something better and have to use the cheap dupont wires, soldered, I leave the dupont pins in place and solder to them instead of the wire. It's a bit clunky but you do get a bit of strain relief too.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2023, 12:04:39 am
content: Interesting. I've never heard those jumper wires called "DuPont wire" before.https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/comments/ioc6sf/i_finally_foundout_why_dupont_connectors_are/

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2023, 12:06:11 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on September 11, 2023, 04:22:50 pmi think amazon. they were part of one of those breadboard + wires package. mle-male , male-female, female-female wires. come as a multicolor ribbon cable. you rip them apart.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2023, 01:13:12 am
content: those sellers of aluminum wire don't want us to have the technological edge by actually being able to plug in components

author: 5U4GB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2023, 12:11:03 pm
content: Quote from: hans on September 11, 2023, 10:23:05 pmThen you may run into another monstrosity, CCC, which is copper-clad-copper. Specifically a thin plating of copper over whatever random gunk was being brewed up at the smelter that morning, with at least some of it being copper so it's hard to tell whether it's proper copper or CCC copper. In that case you need to run resistance measurements to see whether it's proper copper or not.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2023, 07:38:00 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on September 11, 2023, 12:05:21 amAnd oftentimes not even that.(Western corollary.)

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2023, 07:45:45 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 10, 2023, 11:05:35 pmWho are you calling "retard"? It is you who is using the wrong product the wrong way.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2023, 09:46:32 pm
content: yes if you are not scamming sellers by selling that wire you are using it the wrong way.if free_electron was smart he would sell 50 miles of this stuff and disappear into the maldaves

author: Lango1818
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2023, 05:57:33 am
content: I hear you LOL.I had a similar experience with “magical magnetic copper jumper leads” sold in packs by Jaycar and Altronics. They had a major problem of heating up with very little current flow. I bought some silicon coated copper lead and replaced the “IORNISIUM” and now I have useful leads.