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Copper Clad Aluminum vs Oxygen Free Copper

I use Belden, copper wire, from NAPA. I personally don't think aluminum should be used for automotive wiring.
 
Electricity and aluminum are avoided by me. I have seen, and owned) aluminum, and aluminum W/copper cladding wiring on trailers and house trailers. I have replaced it, or sold it after fixing it several times. On a trailer I like copper, and soldered connections with shrink tubing and liquid tape applied twice. Liquid tape on screw terminals as well. Copper remains more flexible and work hardens less. If aluminum is chosen, all connections must be aluminum compatible, and corrosion inhibitor applied. Jim
 
No, aluminum is not preferred for mobile applications. It doesn't handle vibration well.

Same applies to any wire intended for building (stationary) use. Solid wire should be avoided, even solid copper. Even stranded copper building wire is not the same. It has larger strands, and the insulation is stiffer, which makes it less conformable to bends, tends to spring back to it's original "coiled on the roll" position, which stresses connections.

The proper wire is "low voltage automotive wire" or "appliance wire". Both are fine strand, easily formed into place, and are more forgiving of flexing without breaking.

I prefer all soldered connections, shrink tube, and liquid tape for waterproofing.
 
No!! The use of 12 gauge wire for brakes is cheap insurance. Heating a wire from current flow over and over, will make it brittle and cause failure. The cost differential when labor is factored in is just no big deal. LED tail lights can be wired with 18 gauge. Jim
 
I'm putting LED lights on it, and figured the 18 gauge word work for the lights, but doubted if it was heavy enough for brakes.
 
I am doing the same thing with my trailer. I found 12 gage at a very low price. Until I read it's copper clad. I stayed away from that I just paid 10.00 for 15 ft No 12 wire from Napa I thought that was rather pricy. When I had my house built in the 70's I got a very low price on the wiring. When the electrician showed up he had aluminum wire. He said it was fine. So 50 years later no problems, yet I don't think it's used anymore. Stan
 
Wouldn't trust clad as far as you can spit in a hurricane. Lots of good advice of what to do. My nephew bought a house for a Very good price. Stipulation was all of the aluminum wire needed to be pulled and replaced. With automotive and trailers road salt just loves aluminum. Just my $.02.
 
One problem I would see with aluminum is keeping connections clean and tight. You can't solder aluminum. Therefore, all connections must be mechanical. Mechanical connections will loosen up in time with exposure to vibration. Are you willing to go over every connection and clean and retighten them periodically? That sounds like too much maintenance to me.
 
They tried aluminum wire in mobile homes for a few years in the 1970's. Within a couple years, they started catching fire because minor vibrations set up the electric current would break the wires, causing them to spark and catch fire. They quit using aluminum wire, and as I recall many people ended up having the home re-wired with conventional copper wire.
 
Back in the '70's copper was at one of it's usual premiums and tract home builders decided to use Aluminum, having to upsize one number for the same current carrying 2% drop at full load capacity. That wasn't the problem. The problem was at the duplex service outlets where the connection was under a screw., Over time the Alum. would change dimensions as a function of temperature and before you knew it you had a lose connection which led to numerous fires.

Several solutions were devised with a special coating for the wire (dark grey gooey mess) and finally the wires were cut off at the duplex box and Copper was Wire Nut attached with the Copper pigtail being placed under the screw....which worked.

On the cladding, having a background in high frequencies and all, to get the benefit of a clad surface, you need a frequency high enough that it rides the surface of the conductor.....60 Hz doesn't fit the bill. If it's for corrosion control, the problem wasn't corrosion, it was as explained.
 
Copper clad aluminum has its place. There are miles of Copper clad aluminum all over this country being used in the high frequency communication OSP. Some of you are getting your internet though Copper clad aluminum lines. Some of it is buried, some of it is aerial. But I would not use Copper clad aluminum to wire a trailer. I have no experience with oxygen free copper. Not going to pretend to know. That said, I?d use a good quality stranded Not solid copper wire rated for trailer wiring. solid will not hold up with all the vibrations. I?d also up the electric brake wire size. The exact size will depend on how many axles have brakes and to some degree how long the trailer is.
 
Copper clad aluminum has its place. There are miles of Copper clad aluminum all over this country being used in the high frequency communication OSP. Some of you are getting your internet though Copper clad aluminum lines. Some of it is buried, some of it is aerial. But I would not use Copper clad aluminum to wire a trailer. I have no experience with oxygen free copper. Not going to pretend to know. That said, I?d use a good quality stranded Not solid copper wire rated for trailer wiring. solid will not hold up with all the vibrations. I?d also up the electric brake wire size. The exact size will depend on how many axles have brakes and to some degree how long the trailer is.
 
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