Why has Romex wire gotten so expensive?

On 21 Jun 2006 18:45:28 +0200, "ELAL" Gave us:

Actually getting some large scale aggressive digging done in Alaska would make US the king in the world copper market!

Not to mention solve our perceived "problem".

And what defines "big"? Right... Current, or more precisely: current density! Surely a 50 amp bussbar looks HUGE when only supplying a 15A circuit, but that perspective quickly changes when you try to bolt the very same bar into a 4kA feed ;-)

Half the surface area @ half the current = same current density. So the difference for well-made connections is nil.

For a faulty connection OTOH, things get a lot dirtier (for 120V, that is). Since faults are non-linear in nature, 240V faults will develop _much_ more heat than a 120V one (often by a magnitude). This might look horrible, but it _actually_ means that, in 230..240V-land, most faults literally go out with a (firecracker-like) bang, either clearing the circuit or tripping the breaker immediately!

Granted, it scares the cr*p out of people IF it happens, but I somehow prefer that over 'silently arcing, while lighting yet another electrical fire'...

Well, practice what you preach, then!

In practice, however, you'll end up terminating those thicker wires into gear that (from a .eu perspective) can only described as dangerously flimsy, despite having to handle twice the current. So much for safety... ahem...

Obviously, wire size is still _the_ criterium for rating the breakers. Huge DUH! You'll need less current, so it trips at less current... There is absolutely no practical difference WRT short cicuit conditions.

In a 'bare wire to bare wire' comparison it surely is, but:

Using 'lower voltage' and 'safer' in the same sentence for something that's NOT

Will not happen for YEARS.

Like it or not, today most money is made in "clean" pursuits.

In Virginia, for example, there is pressure to shut down the commercial fishing industry (what's left of it) so that "sport fish" have more to eat. There is more money in tourists than "real" farming. There is more money in pandering to the "sport" fishermen than the folks who fish and process the fish to support their families.

It would take another "Great Depression" with folks jumping out of windows to change all of that.

They amended the Florida constitution to give mullet rights and put commercial fishermen out of work

On 22 Jun 2006 14:33:34 +0100, "ELAL" Gave us:

No. In a PEOPLE contact comparison.

I can touch 120. I would not touch 240. You have you analyses screwed up.

Since they aren't using teflon wire, I'd say that 4kV is a bit high. Also matters if it is AC or DC.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:29:25 -0400, "John Gilmer" Gave us:

Trust me... we'll be mining copper in Alaska. You may be right, it may take up to a decade, but it will happen.

We will see.

I would have more confidence in your statement were "they" to permit more drilling "up there."

< big snip >

Well, bare wire == people contact is highly likely. Probability of contact is a thing that _should_ be factored in, when talking about safety!

As a certain Georg Ohm discovered ages ago, voltage and current are correlated.

And 42 is not only the answer to life, the universe and everything, it's also generally regarded as THE voltage limit, where human contact won't result in a lethal current in ANY circumstance. With everything over

42V, _avoiding_ contact should be the #1 priority!

If that isn't 'complacency' spelled out in 400 point, all-caps, bold and double underlined...

You should ;-) From my experience, 230/240 feels like a much better 'wake-up call'

Remember: Electricity doesn't kill people, complacency does!

ditto

Uh, last time I've checked, this was an EE group. I find the lack of basic knowledge on insulation testing disturbing.

Designing an appliance to withstand a 4kV insulation test doen't require magic, nor exotic materials. Using at least two layers of insulation (which could be anything, including air) and ensuring sufficiently long current creep paths everywhere, does. But that's obvious to everyone who has read the EN60065 code for 230V appliances...

Seriously flawed understanding. pi * r^2 * h is not the same as pi * 2 * r * h

You talked about half the copper in a wire - that's the volume (pi*r^2*h) of a cylinder

In your reply, you erroneously equate that to surface area which is pi*2*r*h for a cylinder.

Ed

On 24 Jun 2006 14:29:04 +0200, "ELAL" Gave us:

As it relates to heart fibrillation, only current matters.

Regardless of what voltage someone has introduced into their body, all that matters is how much current passes through the heart.

That has to do with pathways, and the initial voltage IS a factor for any given skin resistance. So 120V WILL be safer than 240V for ANY given test circumstance.

So, yes, very much correlated.

On 24 Jun 2006 14:29:04 +0200, "ELAL" Gave us:

You got it wrong. It is 42 mA.

In a closed body, a 42mA current can fibrillate the heart.

In an open body, heart DE-fibrillation is done at 2mA levels with 2" paddles. It's all about the current.

AGAIN, current is the main factor. A 5000 volt power supply that is limited to 1uA current will not harm anyone, even those an arc from it might not feel the best to the person receiving it. That 5000 Volts got clamped to near zero at the onset of current flow in the completed Supply/Man circuit.

On 24 Jun 2006 14:29:04 +0200, "ELAL" Gave us:

You're an idiot.

I take it back... You're a retard.

A retard with a retarded slogan.

Fuck off, retard.

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 20:09:42 GMT, ehsjr Gave us:

Two 14Ga 1.25" long leads helically twisted together at 3 twists per inch will be far better "contacted". than two 1.25" 16Ga leads at 3 twists per inch. Anybody with a simple CAD package can draw that tangency up.

Also, his remark that the difference is nil, will ONLY apply to a working circuit. Since the safety concern revolves around circuit failure mode conditions, the current density would be much higher.

On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:06:10 -0400, "John Gilmer" Gave us:

I think it would be nicer to put the value back into it.

A kid should still be able to walk down to the corner store and buy a penny stick of bubble gum.. Not that a good parent would let their kid out alone in this world, but I speak of better times past... in so many ways.

Well, "Penny Candy" was just about history when I will still sort of a "kid" back in the 1950s.

Since then the cost of just about everything has gone up by a factor of from

5 to 10 times. That's sufficient reason to give the $.01 piece the heave ho.

If we enter another round of inflation the US should either seriously consider dropping both the $.05 and the $.10 and/or issue some "new" currency that's 1/10 the value of the old stuff.

What I would do:

Everything would be made to operate from 240V.

The 240V would be supplied from center tapped transformers, with the center tap grounded. In other words, the current American system. The center tap would be used for nothing but grounding. No 120V devices.

3 phase would be 240Y/139, with the Y center point grounded. Again, everything uses 240V either single phase or 3 phase, nothing gets connected to the center point except the ground.

This gives the best of both worlds. Devices draw less current thus more safety there. Touching any hot by a grounded person will only give you a 120V shock, unless touching 3 phase where you would get zapped with 139V. You'd need to manage to touch 2 hots at once to get zapped with 240V. GFCIs could be used everywhere. No 4 wire 240V circuits, 2 hots+ground everywhere. 3 phase has 3 hots+ground.

The big drawback is all light switches need to be double pole, and 3 way switch circuits get "interesting".

The last of the penny gumball machines seemed to be around 66, 67. Maybe we can blame this oin Vietnam too. ;-)

It is clear to me that the average inflation factor over my lifetime is about 40. Not all price increase is inflation. Similarly, not all price stability is indicative of no inflation.

Postage is a good example of a service whose price increase is bitterly opposed by most politicians. First class postage has gone up by a factor of

20 during my lifetime. That is in spite of increased productivity from automatic sorting machines, zip codes and all that.

One common fallacy is to equate price increase with decline in the value of money. The electronics industry is one in which price has remained constant or even gone down. You can buy a much better television set now for about the same number of dollars than in about 1960. Nevertheless, because of increased productivity of electronic components, the price should possibly be lower.

On the other hand, when the price of a scarce commodity goes up, it is not necessarily a sign of inflation. Certainly, in the US, copper has to be extracted from poorer ores as the better ones get consumed. It takes more effort and capital investment for that. Price increase of that nature is not inflationary but indicative of necessarily lowered standards of living that will be forced upon us by a poorer environment. That is not to say that there is no inflation in the price of copper.

As far as I can see, the primary driver of inflation in the US is the Congress with their profligate deficit spending. Almost all politicians like to spend--Democrat and Republican alike! They just want to spend on different things.

One Congressman asked about how he managed to get reelected so many times said, "I always voted against tax increases and never voted against an appropriation." We are also our own enemy because we reelect them.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

Maybe I'm wrong - but it seems his understanding is too thin for him to get it. Actually, I suspect he doesn't care. Ed