I am trying to work out a few details for my lightning protection system. I have received and read (some in the TT archives) some conflicting recommendations on whether to use solid or stranded coppe
Hi Bill, In the corrosive soil here in New York, #4 stranded copper wire lasted about 6-7 years before I could pull it off the cadweld. Exposed aluminum sheathed hardline lasts even less. Switched to
Solid is the way to go. As I understand it, stranded wire can oxidize and therefore lose "contact" or have high resistance between each strand. Since it's the surface area of wire that carries the el
have little less one needs to consider? Skin effect causes the outer strand in ANY stranded wire, even litz wire, to tend to carry nearly all the high frequency current. Because it is a distance fro
can oxidize and therefore lose "contact" or have high resistance between each strand. Since it's the surface area of wire that carries the electrons, The problem is magnetic flux. The closer to the
Solid seems right to me, too, but I wonder why a lot of traditional lightning protection is done with stranded. See, for example, http://molasar.blackmagic.com/ses/bruceg/EMC/litfacil.html . My house
An interesting thought - what about 3/4" copper plumbing tubing as a ground conductor? I suppose if it took a lightning hit, and even if you silver-soldered any joints, you would still blow out the s
And my house system was done with braided aluminum conductor about 1" in diameter, which is still widely and cheaply sold by home lightning protection vendors. The individual conductors appear to be
Which would be what the local code probably requires for the electrical safety ground. (but that's NOT a lightning ground) The inductance of stranded and solid wire will be almost the same (as in, I
therefore lose "contact" or have high resistance between each strand. Since it's the surface area of wire that carries the electrons, if the strands lose contact with each other, strike energy may be
By spreading the current out into many filaments, Litz wire reduces the losses due to skin effect compared to the SAME amount of the conductor in single strand. A given current filament is farther fr
My sources say that 1/2" copper pipe/tube with .032" wall weighs 0.18 lb/ft, which is what the lightning guys say you need FWIW. Common soft copper tubing @ 1/2" seems doable. Soft copper tubing is a
Copper pipe is more expensive. It is also difficult to connect sections of solid pipe together. 73 Gary K4FMX _______________________________________________ See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self
wire reduces the the conductor in any other filament, Only when the wire occupies more physical area. For a given area solid is better over wider frequency ranges, such as with lightning or HF RF cu
filament, surface but a more fundamental reason (albeit, related to skin effect). It's the fact that parallel conductors have a mutual inductance, so a changing current in one conductor induces a vo
be about #16. The provides some other protection practice and Sure. It's easy to work with and cheap. You can bend it easily during installation. _______________________________________________ See:
worthwhile at HF (>3 MHz) transmission lines use inductance (as well as tens or hundreds Litz wire in http://www.w8ji.com/skindepth.htm 73 Tom _______________________________________________ See: ht
I was thinking about the inductance and resistance of the outer woven conductor vs the same number of strands in a compact bundle (i.e. stranded wire). It's pretty clear that if one had stranded wir
I wonder if the original post was referring to using tinned braid as opposed to stranded or solid wire. CRAIG CLARK , K1QX PO BOX 209 RINDGE NH 03461 603 899 6957 ___________________________________
tubing as a ground if you solder, but if you Many of my grounds are just regular old soldered 3/4" copper pipe. My shop ground exiting through the wall is copper pipe. It ties a 4" wide copper flash