Need supportive information

Peter,

Here are two links to Ultrasonic wire cleaning.

www.bransoncleaning.com/industry_wire_cleaning.asp

www.hielscher.com/ultrasonics/wire_01.htm

Neither of these look like what was at Westinghouse in Jeffereson City MO about 30 years ago (boy do I feel old!!!)

That unit was a made up of some stainless steel pipes about 8 inches in diameter and about 5 feet long. There was a tube for each wire. The entrance and exit was reduced so that the opening was not much larger than the wire size. I think it might have had steam piped into it but I don’t remember.

You are right about the speeds, size for size, not being as fast as extruding wire. If you were making film coated magnet wire that was 18 awg or about 1 mm, there was a time when you would be lucky if you were operating at 20-30 meters/minute. But since the typical system had 16 to 24 lines, the cumulative speed and out put was significant. So a 20 line system would be cumulatively producing wire at about 600 meters/minute which is comparable to extruding. The major difference is that you could be making a couple of different sizes at the same time and putting them on different size spools too.

Additionally film insulated wire produced a coating that was very thin and extrusion does not result in a similar product. There has been work on extruding magnet wire but it is not the same product as film insulated wire and the thermal applications are limited.

I ave lots of info in boxes. As I clean out my garage I will probably find info.

Richard

This makes no sense to me at all. Curing enamel is a time temperature relationship. Aluminum has a much better thermal rate of conduction than copper so it gets hot (hotter?) quicker than copper. In reality you should be running 10 or more % faster not 90% slower. Think like this: You should be able to make about the same amount of pounds of aluminum wire per hour as copper wire. That of course assumes that they are the same diameter and you are using the same enamel.

Now are there other problems that are contributing to this? Probably. What size wire are you talking about? What type enamel?
What kind of enameling system brand and type?

If I was going to make a guess at the problem I would guess that the wire coming out of the pre-annealer was so hot that (a) you could not cool it and it was oxidizing or (b) it was so hot that when it hit the applicator it was causing surface quality problems or (c) you were carrying water from the water seal into the applicator. To correct these problems you reduced the annealer temp which required you to reduce the wire speed.

Other than that you might play with the zone temperatures in your oven.

I've been thinking about this some more. Do you really mean to say that the speed you run say 1 mm aluminum wire your speed is 1/10th of the speed you run 1 mm copper? I could understand if you were running 10% slower. I cannot understand why you are running 90% slower. I think you need to do some processing engineering with the following in your mind: (1) Aluminum should run faster than the same size copper with the same type enamel. (2) Aluminum will heat up faster than copper so you may have to adjust the temperature profile of the oven chamber (3) Aluminum and copper have different pre-annealing temperatures so you may have to adjust it. (4)If the aluminum is not properly cooled, etc. it will oxidize before you can apply the enamel.

Hello Guys,

I'm already using aluminum but is on extrusion lines , somebody from this forum could recommend what type of tooling ( guider and die ) must be used , actually I'm using an standard guider but I/m thinking in use tubing on the guider to assure Min wall also allow that the plastic sticks on the aluminum core , I'd really appreciate opinions and tips to run this product.

Angel

Are you extruding single strand or multi strand wire. what is the coating? What type extruder do you have. How thin do you need the wall thickness to be?
rb

Hello Martin,

spectre07 is indeed correct in asking about the size and make-up of the aluminum conductor and the polymer being extruded but here are a couple of points to be aware of:
- Regardless of the wire size, if you want adhesion no doubt to reduce shrinkback, you need to have the conductor clean as there is residual oil on both single and stranded conductors from both drawing and stranding.

- Generally speaking, the smaller conductor gage sizes such as 22 or 24 AWG with Tefzel insulation use tubing, usually with vacuum. (Figure about 1600 feet per minute for this process.) The PE, PP and PVC polymer insulations are generally pressure extruded at much higher speeds. (Figure 4,000 feet per minute to say 7,500 feet per minute depending on the polymer, conductor size and extrusion equipment.) I am not sure what the best cleaning solution is today. Western Electric used to use liquid Freon at their high speed extrusion lines but this is no longer allowed of course. Perhaps others will advise us what is used. Whatever that solvent is, it must be safe and leave no residual chemicals on the conductor surface.

- Larger stranded conductors for products such as line wire can be both tubed and pressure extruded. Generally speaking an in-line natural gas or propane furnace is installed at the front of the extrusion line. This first burns off the oil from the surface of the conductor.
There is also machinery that cleans wire at various speeds but each one may or may not be appropriate for aluminum wire at your particular conductor size. You will have to research this yourself.
- Cable Consultants Corporation Primary Wire Wipe. This machine is designed to clean non-ferrous solid or stranded wire from 18 to 30 AWG at speeds up to 8000 FPM. www.cableconsultantscorp.com/primary.htm

- The PlasmaCLEANER is a plasma treatment machine designed for surface cleaning or deoxidation on ferrous and non-ferrous wires, tubes or strip. www.plasmait.com/index.php?page=5

- DynaPower Inc. markets its patented ultrasonic and electrolytic cleaning systems to the wire manufacturing industry. www.dynapowerinc.com/

- GEO-Reinigungstechnik GmbH provides in-line, portable, semi and fully automatic washing systems for wire. www.geo-reinigungstechnik.de/index.php?article_id=1&clang=1

- Vapor Blast Manufacturing Company manufactures and sells its liquid honing equipment. www.vaporblast.com/
Kindest Regards,
Peter J. Stewart-Hay
Principal
Stewart-Hay Associates
www.Stewart-Hay.com