On 13 Mar 2005 14:37:17 -0800, jim rozen wrote:

In article , Mark Rand says...

Multiple strands have no effect whatsoever if they are in electrical contact.
A 3/8" diameter welding cable is essentially identical in impedance to a solid
cable of identical cross section. The only way to get multiple strands to give
you an advantage with skin effect is to insulate them from each other and to
regularly transpose the conductors so that each one ends up with the same
impedance from end to end.

Umm - yes but. At higher frequencies, the solid wire will have
*less* loss.

The reason for this is that the stranded cable has multiple contact
points between strands, and unless the individual strands are
gold plated to eliminate oxide, there will be energy loss at
each one of those contact points.

It's a skin effect thing, but with a twist.

Jim


G



Mark Rand
RTFM