General > General Technical Chat
Big Clive and Copper-Clad Wire
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soldar:
There have been other threads about copper-clad steel or aluminum wire.

Big Clive puts one from eBay to the test and it promptly catches fire.

Here is the thing though: It is the importer into the EU (or UK) who is responsible for the product meeting safety standards. It is not the job of the Chinese seller. If you buy a single item from China you are responsible for the safety. If you are not sure then better buy only from accredited importers (and pay the premium).

It is not like the cable is intrinsically bad. It is perfectly good for other applications but not for putting 5A through it to power a toaster.

I suppose an argument could be made that eBay or Amazon should bear responsibility that the products comply with the standards of the destination country but they would simply not do any international sales because it is too costly to get the approval.

Do we prefer the freedom to buy dangerous things or do we prefer the safety of having every product we buy controlled by our authorities? Tough call.



tom66:
I prefer a market which isn't flooded with dangerous crap.  The average user has no idea that this cable is crap and is liable to start a fire, and if they plug it into their toaster in an apartment block, that could become another crisis like Grenfell was.
iMo:
The copper clad aluminum started decades back with CAT patch cables (solid wires) afaik.
I can remember I put the naked CAT wire into the flame testing whether the wire is copper clad AL or copper.
With network cables it is not a big problem as those signals are low power and fast (skin effect).
Kleinstein:
The connector (EU 2 pole one) is not specified for 5 A, but only for 2.5A at most. So at least under normal conditions there should be no load with more than 2.5 A accepting this type of cable.
It is still not good or safe - it may withstand 2.5 A when single, but just a single loop or knot in the cable can be an issue.

I also still have some iron core cable - though not intended for mains, but an old  "military grade" phone cable.
5U4GB:

--- Quote from: soldar on October 16, 2023, 10:24:12 am ---It is not like the cable is intrinsically bad. It is perfectly good for other applications
--- End quote ---

Just as an example, here's a demo of something that CCA cable is perfectly suited for:



As you can see, it's being used correctly here.  Some crazy people however try and run power through it which is definitely not its intended use, as the comment in the video points out.
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