Re: Objections to Steel Wire?

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Original poster: "Jason by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jasonp-at-btinternet-dot-com>

All,

> Intellectual curiosity makes me wonder what the actual impact
> to performance would be [with steel wire], if tried...

I did a little test about a year ago to compare steel and copper wire. I had
already built my primary, so I decided to see what the effects would be if I
used it to wire up my tank circuit. I used 2mm dia. for both tests (small
thickness = more obvious results). The copper wire gave me almost a third
output again than the steel wire did at the same power! I was running 10/110
NST farm, Cp 22nF at 200bps with Lp 18uH  - giving somewhere around 55A pri.
RMS current. The (bare) steel wire got hot enough to melt the acrylic
standoffs that I was using after about 30 seconds, but the copper wire was
only warm after a 5 minute run at 1.1kVA.

For the primary, I was using good 'ole microbore, and after the experiment
switched back to much thicker gauge copper wire (about 5mm) to connect up
the primary tank circuit, and now get no detectable rise in temperature. I
certainly wouldnt reccomend using steel wire anywhere in the primary of a
TC. Im not sure what the magnetic effects on the system were (i.e. residual
magnetism in the steel wire) but I do know that the resistive losses were
very high.

Best Regards,

Jason
[UK Geek #1139 Rank G-2]
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