02Pilot
SuperDork
3/31/19 6:31 p.m.
Looking for an assortment of automotive wire for my Saab project. Amazon turns up several multi-colored sets that look promising, but closer reading indicated they are copper-clad aluminum (CCA) wire rather than copper, and that this means higher resistance. Is this a significant issue, or simply a matter of CYA on the part of the seller? Planning on using it for hooking up auxiliary gauges, among other things, so I imagine resistance would be a factor, but how big a difference are we talking about here? Anyone got a good source for reasonably priced copper wiring assortments?
Nugi
Reader
3/31/19 8:36 p.m.
Frankly, it sucks. Brittle, resistive, cheap crap. I would avoid it wherever possible and look for copper. I sent back 3 of 5 amazon wire orders because of that stuff. Once for welding cable! Sure, copper is more expensive, but I would sooner used used copper than new CCA. That said, i doubt the resistance change is big enough to notice on automotive gauges.
I wouldn't use aluminum on a vehicle. Even coated it's going to fatigue and break.
02Pilot
SuperDork
3/31/19 9:05 p.m.
I kind of figured it was a bad idea. Good sources for copper?
ChasH
New Reader
3/31/19 10:11 p.m.
