5 ms·
The risks of using steel cable for power are going to be corrosion/rust. The primary way this will cause problems is around connections, but long term it is al
by ltbarcly3 4y ago
The risks of using steel cable for power are going to be corrosion/rust. The primary way this will cause problems is around connections, but long term it is also an issue away from connections. At connections, corrosion can cause the wire to become loose, something like ox-gard can be used to delay this significantly. It isn't designed for steel but some kind of protection must be done at connections or arcing will be a major risk. Longer term the wire itself will rust, and at some point the conductive cross section of the wire will be compromised to the point it overheats and melts. This might be a year and it might be 100 years depending on factors which are hard to predict and control.
TLDR: connections must be protected by some kind of anti oxidation coating, if you have nothing else use grease but something designed for electrical connections is better. If you have nothing else, melt some lead and dip the exposed part of the wire in that to coat it. Lead should be readily available in a war zone? Long term the wire WILL melt at some random point along the wire so it is much better if this wire is kept away from anything flammable.
- codethief 4y agoMaybe you should post this as an answer/comment in the OP?
- cbdumas 4y agoYou should post this as an answer to the question on stackexchange
- dheera 4y agoIt takes effort to sign-up though. Maybe that should be a lesson to stackexchange to not require login to post intelligent content.
- wizzwizz4 4y agoStack Exchange doesn't require login to post. It just requires an email address (and you can provide a fake one, if you don't have one for whatever reason).
- MisterTea 4y ago> It isn't designed for steel but some kind of protection must be done at connections or arcing will be a major risk. Not so much arcing but resistance between the terminal and the wire will increase as a coating of oxide builds up between the two. Eventually the resistance is high enough that dangerous amounts of heat will build up and ignite wire insulation or other flammable materials. What usually happens, is the conductor was nicked by the electrician during stripping and that becomes a mechanical weak point that becomes a fuse link and the wire sometimes just melts off at that point rapidly without starting a fire and goes open circuit. > melt some lead and dip the exposed part of the wire in that to coat it. Plain molten lead isn't going to "wet" the steel wire without some sort of flux. Rosin flux is made from tree sap of a conifer tree so go find a pine tree and harvest some sap.
- hinkley 4y agoborax?
- genewitch 4y agoI would think that's a different type of "flux" as it's commonly used for cleaning gold and preventing gold from sticking to the crucible. then again, flux is just an acid, so who knows.
- hinkley 4y agoI've been watching too much blacksmithing on Youtube. It can be used for laminating iron, that much I do know. Not sure about brazing.
- jaclaz 4y agoYou don't really need "rosin flux", the idea is to remove oxidation, chloridric acid is what was used for tin soldering, "saturated" with zinc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_chloride#As_a_metallurgical_flux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_chloride#As_a_metallurgic... Though I have no idea if either can be found locally.
- hinkley 4y ago> Lead should be readily available in a war zone? Goddamn, son.
- ethbr0 4y agoOut of curiosity, does electron flow influence oxidation speed at all? Or is its speed purely a consequence of temperature + environmental gases?
- scotty79 4y agoMaybe if it warms up the cable it could speed up oxidation?
- ethbr0 4y agoIt would. I think that's what most people were figuring. And also, assuming it's wrapped but not encased to cabling standards (e.g. there's oxygen between the insulator and wire, but the insulator itself is contiguous and airtight), oxidation would eventually deplete the available oxygen "inside" the cable, right?
- ltbarcly3 4y agoThe plastic on cheap farm cable like this is not going to be air tight, almost certainly isn't water vapor tight, and probably isn't even 'rust tight', in that I've seen rust migrate through plastic coated steel fencing and accumulate on the outside. I wouldn't count on it for anything other than making the rust slightly less obvious.
- jugg1es 4y agothis is an interesting question. Electrical current creates an EM field that could repel water molecules and oxygen ions. Temperature could also slow oxidation down... like I'm trying to imagine a red hot piece of iron rusting. I wouldn't think it would rust as fast as a cold piece of iron.
- ethbr0 4y agoHigh temperature speeds oxidation. Learned as a consequence of blacksmithing. ;) So red hot iron absolutely rusts, you just beat the (brittle) oxidation off as you work the piece.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago> The risks of using steel cable for power are going to be corrosion/rust Probably fine in Sudan in late spring, tbh. They have to pump water up from the ground with electric pumps, hence the need for cabling, so I guess they don't have much rain right now.
- zdragnar 4y agoSudan gets about 4 inches of rain a year or something like that. It's obscenely hot (compared to what I am accustomed to) and dry. For a temporary solution, rust definitely is not a limiting factor here.
- passwordoops 4y agoGreat answer. And I love that the TLDR is almost as long as the main text
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- RheingoldRiver 4y agoBtw, OP clarified in a comment that by "for how how long" they meant distance and not time. They're hoping it's a temporary solution.