spudnuty wrote:
bud--

Where I am special crimp connections are required by code for making
Al-Cu connections. However the equipment is so expensive no one stocks
it or rents it.
Richard


What sort of equipment? If it has to be usable in some of the confined
spaces where you often have to make connections, wouldn't it have to be in
the size of range of other hand tools?

Well this came up when I looked at a job in a high rise condo. There
were many badly damaged outlets and upon inspection it was clear that
there had been a lot of overheated connections. Even some burning. The
building was from the 70's and the wiring was all aluminum. I have had
bad experience with aluminum badly installed. One power distribution
room I was in had so much arcing in it you really didn't need to have
the lights on.
Anyway it's on Sam's he
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/electrical-...ection-16.html
and initially he
http://www.mikeholt.com/mojonewsarch...C~20030502.htm
The tool required is AMP PART NO. 933150-1. They will only sell to
licensed electricians who have completed their (AMP's) training
program. Cost of training, $2000 and actually the tool cannot be
purchased only leased. Cost of a 3 month lease, $700-$800 dollars.
I presented this to my client with the option of replacing everything
with copper and he hired someone else and they used wirenuts. In
talking to a longtime employee of the building he said "Yah there have
been a lot of electrical fires in the building."
Richard

Thanks for the information on cost of the crimp tool - I read complaints
but I didn't think it was THAT expensive.

In addition to cold creep in the wiring FAQ (which was substantially
fixed with new alloy wire and CO/ALR devices) another major problem is
aluminum oxide which forms rapidly on clean aluminum and is an insulator.

The Consumer Product Safety Council had extensive research done on
aluminum connections. The professional engineer involved in the research
wrote a paper based on the research - at
http://www.inspect-ny.com/aluminum/alreduce.htm
The paper gives a wide range of fixes from the crimp tool you talk about
to wire nuts and others. There is a detailed procedure for using
wirenuts which includes applying antioxide paste and then abrading the
surface to remove oxides. The author does not think wirenuts are an
improvement without the procedure. There is, as far as I know, only one
wirenut UL listed for aluminum wire (from Ideal) - the author
specifically does not like it.
---------------------------
Do garden variety crimps, like panduit, work reliably on #14 and lagrer
wire?

bud--