help me ID this wire

beat · « **on:** 18 Oct 2003, 04:24 pm »

Hey guys,
This is something I can pick for wayyyy cheap. It is made by teledyne and the spool referenced that is was good for high heat aplications. It is obviously teflon sheathed and well shielded but I cant tell what the conductors are made of. It appears to be silver as it is shiny and doesnt seem to show a copper cross section when cut. Would they make such a thing? the twists are about 1 per inch. and the guage is about 18. Here is a link to the gallery pic

http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=913

Monolith · « **Reply #1 on:** 18 Oct 2003, 08:30 pm »

Get a very powerful magnet and check for a steel core.

beat · « **Reply #2 on:** 19 Oct 2003, 10:20 pm »

Well,
It's definitely not steel then. After scraping at it with a sharp blade a copperish tint was revealed. I think I'll just do some chemical tests to see what it is. I will have to figure out how to do that though. Silver will be easy. Anyhow, It could possibly make a decent interconnect for very little money.

Monolith · « **Reply #3 on:** 19 Oct 2003, 11:26 pm »

Teledyne makes some aircraft wire which is why I had you test it. A/C wire generally has a steel core so it can be pulled through bulkheads without breaking.

Copper is typically coated due to the high temp process required to form the Teflon insulation.

Occam · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 Oct 2003, 07:20 am »

But what on earth would your use it for?

As its shield appears to be in conformal contact with the twisted pair, its going to have undesirable capacitive involvement with the shield as a interconnect, and uneccessary capacitive coupling to ground, if used as a powercord or speaker cable. The shield should be spaced away from the twisted pair. Regardless of its composition, its geometry is sub optimal for any audio applicaition I can imagine.

You could strip off the shield and use it as a twisted pair. The remaining materials could yeild a magical wire, though the probability is small.

beat · « **Reply #5 on:** 22 Oct 2003, 12:26 am »

who knows bro,
one thing I measured is that it has 214pf /foot. I know that is pretty high but that is what I measured. Besides, I don't see how for what it costs that if it is teflon jacketed, silver plated ofc, twisted into a tight shielded pair that it is inherently good for nothing....

_scotty_ · « **Reply #6 on:** 22 Oct 2003, 02:17 am »

beat, Try making a IC out of it with some RADIO SHACK plugs. If there is any merit to the wire it will make itself known rather quickly when made into a quick and dirty IC. The wire gauge and the silver plating would not be my first choice for anything,but you never know for sure until you test
it. The DIY cable with Lowes THHN wire shouldn't work at all. No teflon,silver,six 9's copper,and it has PVC insulation. You might get lucky.

beat · « **Reply #7 on:** 22 Oct 2003, 10:35 pm »

You said it!
it definitely wont merit the cardas silvers at this point, and you are right about just throwing together a quick dirty one for intial reference. I just sent 7 feet to scottpretti to let him play around with. He thinks a friend of his can run tests to find the true content. I'll post more when I know more. I'm not expecting much but hopefully it is decent because I have a lot of cables to make with my new triamp setup.
thanks, beat