Does anyone have an idea what the overhead cable if worth? It's aluminum jacket , copper conductor, with Styrofoam insulation. Thanks
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Does anyone have an idea what the overhead cable if worth? It's aluminum jacket , copper conductor, with Styrofoam insulation. Thanks
ask the cable company, lol, i'm really not sure ; )
I know my yard pays very low for them. They consider it coax cable
The center conductor in coax cable is usually steel with a copper coating. Make sure you check it before you buy it to keep from losing any money and before you try and sell it to a yard so you don't look like a fool.
We throw coax in with the shred.
The outer braided wire is most likely tinned copper. Check everything with a magnet. While I don't know the material in the inner layer of insulation, it's certanly not styrofoam. Not that it matters to a scrapper, but if it was it would fall apart easily. I often pull the cable through the outer jacket and remove the tinned copper, them throw the inner wire and insulation in with my loose lite iron.
thanks for the ideas, I did ask the cable company , they said copper conductor, aluminum jacket. wig black plastic outer jacket. they don't scrap it out of laziness. btw its not braided aluminum, its solid. I'm trying to post a pic actually.
i think it's after 5 posts, so your next one should accommodate a photo
Yeah, I forgot about the aluminum foil around the tinned copper. Sorry. Don't know if it's worth saving, but I've been stuffing them into a small box for the time being. The tinned copper goes with my degausing wires and other bare tinned copper I might accumilate.
if its coax the strand you are calling copper is actually copper clad, your cable company dosent know anything, coax is shred, cut the ends off and sell as dirty brass if it has ends
Trick is you have to use a host site like Photo Bucket to post pics...
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/smf-s...rum-video.html
I know a man that gets all the cable from the cable company. This is the cable that is on the poles not the cable that runs to the house. He said it's copper and strips it all by hand, gets it by the trailer load. He has been doing this long before I met him and i've known him for 3 years.
Ok, here should be the picture. I removed the outer plastic coating easily by hand. Also the AL i am talking about is actually SOLID not foil or braid like I can bend the wire and it stays in that position.haha.
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/a.../cablewire.jpg
Actually the conductor looks like copper plated AL. and there is a plastic paper like insulation inside the AL jacket.
Might have to cut it in shorter sections so you can pull the center conductor out of the alum. jacket. That's if it was a copper center. It would pay the best separated but if it is alum. with a copper coating you might as well just sell it whole without the jacket.
I work for a cable company doing maintenance on cable exactly like that, as well as other types. That is distribution coax, it has a solid aluminum outer conductor, and a copper clad aluminum inner conductor, separated by micro-cellular foam dielectric. Depending on the manufacturer, they can be difficult to separate because they're bonded together.
Hey, Splice thanks for the info. I asked some of the techs at the cable company, and they said its not worth scrapping either. Just like their manager told me. Unless you can't get that plastic coating from inside the Al jacket ? Then I could see that. Copper clad is what it looks like to me also.
Ive seen alot of coax the center is copper clad steel, i would check it with a magnet to see, if its aluminum it may be worth stripping
Sell it as is- most yards should be paying $0.15+ usually only worth buying if you have a good chunk of it.
what did you cut that with, a chainsaw? haha! that's sure a good clear shot. I saw a piece of coax out by the scrap earlier, put a magnet to it, and it doesn't seem to stick, is there only a minute bit of magnetic draw to the regular ones or something?
If you stick a magnet to the center core on a regular steel core piece- you'll know it...
Some coax used by satellite companies have a solid copper center conductor, since they use the coax to power the LNBs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bear
I threw away thousands of brass connectors before I knew I could scrap them. The connectors on the distribution cable are usually extruded aluminum, I also threw away more of them than I want to think of.Quote:
Originally Posted by jghilino
haha Bear, actually I just did a bendy bendy breaky. Technical terms. I have recently found alot more of this cable, and the new find has a lot more insulation. Its not looking so good for scrap. I havent magneted it yet, as its not in my hands.. But I will ASAP/.
I have never once seen copper coated steel as a center conductor in coax. Ever. And I have made more connections and splices in both home wiring and hard line than you can imagine.Quote:
Originally Posted by jghilino
Some of the older stuff will have a solid copper center conductor as well as a copper braided insulation(home type wiring) and can still be had for premium dollars for radio heads and such.
That is a export item you need to find a buyer that ships to china. The last time I sold some it was worth around .20 per lb