There are many types of copper wire on the market, the most common of which are bare copper wire, tinned copper wire and copper clad aluminum wire. Bare copper wire is ordinary copper wire, also known as environmentally friendly copper wire. Many people are not very clear about these three types of copper wire, let's take a look.

Bare copper wire

Bare copper wire is a copper wire drawn from a pure copper rod, and its color is yellow. It has a single material, and is composed of copper metal inside and outside. The color depth varies depending on the purity of the copper. In terms of physical properties, bare copper wire is soft and has excellent conductivity. Jintian Copper has earned a reputation in the market as a professional and trustworthy bare copper wire manufacturer with its persistent pursuit of providing first-class quality.

Tinned copper wire

Tinned copper wire is a pure copper rod drawn into a wire, and a thin layer of tin is plated on the surface of the copper wire. Since tin is a silver metal, tinned copper wire generally appears silvery white. Tinned copper wire is mainly to prevent copper from being exposed to air and oxidizing to form copper rust. Copper rust has poor conductivity and will increase resistance. Compared with bare copper wire, tinned copper wire is softer, more conductive, and more resistant to corrosion and oxidation, which can greatly extend the service life of low-voltage cables. In addition, tinned copper wire can prevent the insulating rubber from bonding, the core from becoming black and brittle, and improve its weldability.

Copper clad aluminum wire

Copper clad aluminum wire is usually manufactured by a cladding welding process, where the copper strip is concentrically wrapped around the outer surface of the aluminum rod core wire to form a strong atomic metallurgical bond between the copper layer and the core wire. This allows the two different metal materials to be combined into an inseparable whole, allowing them to be drawn and annealed like a single metal wire. During the drawing process, the diameters of copper and aluminum change proportionally, while the volume ratio of the copper layer remains relatively constant. Copper clad aluminum wire is light in weight, and compared with the previous two, it has poor conductivity, insufficient flexibility, easy wire breakage, and poor corrosion and oxidation resistance.

So, how do we distinguish these three types of wires?

Appearance

Tinned copper wire is silver, bare copper wire and copper-clad aluminum wire are purple. Cut a section vertically and look at the cross section. If it is purple, it is copper wire; if it is white, it is copper-clad aluminum wire.

Knife scratching

Tinned copper wire turns purple after scratching, bare copper wire remains purple, and copper-clad aluminum wire shows white snowflakes. The same effect will occur when rubbing copper wire on cement.

Burning test

Put the copper wire close to the flame. If it forms a spherical object after burning, it is copper wire; if the metal wire turns white after burning and feels brittle, it is copper-clad aluminum wire.

I believe that after our introduction, you already know how to distinguish them!