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Re: Aluminum wire in an NST



Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>
> 
> Godfrey,
> 
> On 25 Jul 01, at 15:11, Tesla list wrote:
> 
> > Original poster: "Loudner, Godfrey by way of Terry Fritz
> <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <gloudner-at-SINTE.EDU>
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > I read in the archives of the list that because aluminum was a paramagnetic
> > material, aluminum wire was dangerous to use on a tesla coil. But I have no
> > understanding of the nature of the dangers. Maybe its an inaccurate
> > statement.
> >
> > Godfrey Loudner
> 
> Sounds like absolute rubbish to me (skeptic's hat on). I was given a
> huge reel of plastic coated Al (about 0.3mm). I've been meaning to
> wind a coil from it when more important things recede from my diary.
> 
> Regards,
> Malcolm

	It IS absolute trash!!!  As an example, all TV antennas and almost all
other beam antennas are made of aluminum tubing these days, and almost
all HV power transmission lines use ACSR (aluminum cable, steel
reinforced).  The cross sectional area of the conductor is increased to
compensate for the slightly lower conductivity of aluminum. Aluminum
waveguide is perfectly acceptable for microwave use.  The ONLY
difficulty of aluminum conductors is the difficulty of making connection
to them.  I can't imagine this being any problem for a TC secondary,
where contact resistance can have no affect on performance.  I have been
using a large primary of 1/2" diameter aluminum tubing for many years,
and it works just fine.  No noticeable heating after running for a long
time at about 1200 watts input.

Ed