What is your opinion about the "Red Plague"?

[mike_mccue]

Hi,

I've been asking here about teflon wire and thermal wire strippers and have gotten some great info. Thanks.

I think I am about to buy a Patco thermal wire stripper and I want to get a small supply of teflon wire to work with.

I was planning on buying some 600v 20AWG silver plated copper stranded wire with PFTE insulation from bulkwire.com in 8 colors for use in my DIY guitar amps.

I was just about to place an order when I came across a technical note about corrosion on silver plated copper wire. That led me to a whole series of articles about what seems to known as "the Red Plague".

I read about high humidity being a problem. I live in Florida and it seems dry today at 78% relative humidity :-) so that really got my attention.

One thing I noticed is that many of the articles were from the 1950's and 1960's, but one recent one was from 2009.

I began to wonder if this issue had been rendered trivial with improved manufacturing techniques and nick free assembly standards.

It seems like I should be concerned about this because where I live it is almost always over the advised 50% humidity limit.

What sort of practical alternatives do I have for using PTFE copper wire? Ironically it seems hard to find hook up wire that isn't silver plated. Should I look harder?



Should I be concerned or have I stumbled into information overload?


Thank you for any insights you may share.



best regards,
mike

[Steve Conner]

I thought their first album was great but in general they're overrated.

Teflon wire is always silver plated, because the usual tin coating found on PVC insulated wire can't stand the temperatures needed to extrude the Teflon. The tin melts and fuses the strands together.

I have a colleague who worked on oil exploration in Mexico, and he swears by the Teflon hookup wire. We've worked together on scientific instruments full of the stuff, and never seen any red plague. But I hate it anyway, and much prefer PVC.

[Gtr_tech]

I'll use TFE wire sometimes, but only 'cause I got a couple 1000' spools for free

[tedmich]

there is little or no corrosion of PTFE insulated Ag plated Cu wire here in the extremely humid Pacific NW, UNLESS I leave stripped ends which I forget to tin up with solder, then the silver oxidizes to hell. Ag oxidation usually doesn't propagate into the insulation, maybe in marine applications. Dipping the oxidized ends in a solution of sulfamic acid / thiourea (tarnX) gives you back nice clean Ag, rinse in diH2O then acetone and tin it up. Once priced some 38awg Cu wire with a nice Au plate and then heat bondable polymer for coils...was only $10k a spool but that was 25y ago...

[R.G.]

I don't know about red plague, but
- the Patco PTS-10 is so much better than stripping by other means that you'll never go back to what you used to do
- there are two (at least) Patco thermal strippers. The one for teflon is different and higher temperature than the normal vinyl one. I don't know if you can turn it back down to be OK for vinyl. Check this out before you commit.

[diagrammatiks]

if you use solder with some silver content it won't be a problem.

[dai h.]

I thought their first album was great but in general they're overrated.

Teflon wire is always silver plated, because the usual tin coating found on PVC insulated wire can't stand the temperatures needed to extrude the Teflon. The tin melts and fuses the strands together.

FWIW I've read this before (and thought it was odd, since I have purchased what I assumed to be was non-silver plated Teflon wire), googled a bit, and apparently there is a "TA" tin-plated Teflon wire which exists (also, the Teflon wire I bought which I assumed to be non-silver plated was silver-plated, it would seem a bit weird not to have any mention on the package, since I could only imagine that it would be a plus from a marketing perspective (silver and gold-plated has the extra mojo sauce, of course).

IMO Teflon wire is a bit overrated. If you need something with its properties you need it, but it can be hard to work with (slippery), less reliable due to greater stiffness (may not absorb flex as well). If you rely on it to solder wires, then it could mean that your soldering technique sucks...

[mike_mccue]

Thanks everyone!


best regards,
mike

[J M Fahey]

Dipping the oxidized ends in a solution of sulfamic acid / thiourea (tarnX) gives you back nice clean Ag, rinse in diH2O then acetone and tin it up.

Mmmmmmmhhh !!!! Yummy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you have any other delicious old Grandma's recipes to share for kid´s Birthday Parties?

[imaradiostar]

I'd also argue that 20 awg is overkill in a tube amp. 22 works great for almost everything. The only exception would be filaments where I use 20 or 18.

jamie

[tedmich]

Oh I believe thermal strippers also more effectively make thermoplastic seals on the wire ends than mechanical stripping methods. which also nick plating and increase Ag surface area and thus the rate of oxidation. You guys know pure PTFE wire insulation has been banned in aeronautics for years, I believe its all composite insulation now, some polyimide / PTFE, with 2 wrongs apparently making it right.

[imaradiostar]

What's wrong with the tinned stranded 600v PVC wire sold at bulkwire.com? It seems like it would be a great option.

jamie

[tedmich]

nothing! many (steve..) HATE PTFE insulation as its more difficult to work with, but just as materials Ag is cooler than Cu and PTFE is cooler than PVC. Some people love shiny (slippery?) things... its likely a freudian issue..

[mike_mccue]

Here's my last DIY amp:



I'd like to see if I can speed up my assembly time by using Teflon and have all the insulation look neat and tidy.


I ordered the Patco 30 and the wire so I'll learn soon enough.

Thanks again.


best regards,
mike

[diagrammatiks]

Silver content is just part of the wire construction method.

Silver never used to be a mojo component. No reason to treat it like one.

Oh I believe thermal strippers also more effectively make thermoplastic seals on the wire ends than mechanical stripping methods. which also nick plating and increase Ag surface area and thus the rate of oxidation. You guys know pure PTFE wire insulation has been banned in aeronautics for years, I believe its all composite insulation now, some polyimide / PTFE, with 2 wrongs apparently making it right.

Where are you getting your information for this? A quick search for the flammability and wiring requirements says that...

" PVC/nylon wire was included in this study because of its widespread
use before May 1972. It does not pass the 60° flammability test; however, there are in-service
airplanes with PVC/nylon wire. PVC/nylon-wired airplanes are referred to as earlier airplanes"

There appears to be tons of problems associated with kapton.

The only final rule for the FAA is that fuel source wiring has to be teflon/polymide blend. That makes sense since teflon/polymide blend is some kind of science-fiction spider-silk-steel alchemy magic.

They don't just say do not use pure teflon for the sleeving/wiring but it's totally cool to use PVC/mylar if you want. The rule says use super teflon.

The other part of this rule says that industrial grade silver degrades at high elevations so mission critical applications need to use special nickel plated wires.

If you don't want to use ptfe that's cool. No-one's forcing anyone to use it. No reason to make stuff up though.

Nasa, Jedec, IPC, and DOD-MIL also have no prohibitions on the use of teflon wire other then that it must be thermal stripped.

But...at the end of the day none of that really matters since everything built for aeronautics requires wire looming and cable harnessing.