Re: [TCML] primary tubing

["Paul Brodie" <pbbrodie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You can buy a product called anti-ox at any electrical supply company. It is 
specifically made for aluminum to copper connections and it works great.
Paul
Think Positive

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian" <brianv@xxxxxxxx>
To: "'Tesla Coil Mailing List'" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: [TCML] primary tubing


Hi Drake,

I misspoke and called it anodizing and what I meant was Oxidizing, anodizing
is something different that is done in an acid bath oxidizing will happen to
aluminum especially if you try to connect it directly to the copper, unless
the copper is tinned first, then you can connect them, what we used to do on
the larger power transformer is electroplate the copper terminals and then
we could connect the aluminum leads of the winding. You will be able to find
wire gauge charts all over the internet so you can compare the copper to
aluminum for example to replace say 14 gauge copper to aluminum you would
need to replace it with at least 12 gauge or bigger to match the same
current handling capability.  From the charts you can see the differences in
resistance per 1000' for each gauge and from there you can make a good call
and what size to use.  But if you were thinking of using ¼" copper tubing
for a primary, then step up the size of aluminum to the next size bigger and
you should be ok, just pay special attention to your connections and always
tin the copper before you put any aluminum to it and you will be fine. I
have run thousands of amps between copper and aluminum without any issues as
long as all the copper was tinned first; I also tried sonic welding with
poor results, so I went back to electroplating.



--Brian



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