NOS Western Electric wire used for power cables??

Hello Al,

Thank you for your honest questions.

When you are looking at a brittle insulation inside of a component, it is the result of YEARS of heat. Often this is caused by internal components in an old radio, such as the tubes, and has nothing to do with the viability of the original wire.

I have seen MANY modern UL listed extension cords fall prey to the same "symptom" from years of the wire heating due to excessive current draw and modern internal wiring due to a similar chassis heat.

I can not speak for ANY wire aside from the wire I use.

It is QUITE supple, flexible, and in what I would consider "like new" condition.

I have some of this same wire that has been used in audio power cords for over 10 years that is still supple, flexible, and shows no signs of wear or aging.

I recommend that any person purchasing cords, cables, or raw wire only deal with a trusted professional so as to minimize the possibility of purchasing improperly stored, aged, or rotted NOS wire.

As for Simple Q, he may be knowlegable, but it was quite obvious he was looking for a fight if you read his comments in context.

Also, in the case of a power cord having a short, it is ONLY possible that it would create a lower resistance path.

It would create a zero load situation, at least for an instant, until either it blew the breaker or melted the shorting strand.

There is NO POSSIBLITY of a higher resistance situation.

Simple Q...obviously a fitting name.

Don't say I didn't warn you about showing your ignorance of electronics.

To start with you are mixing some truth with some falsehoods.

When you have a short the ONLY possibility is that you have LOWERED resistance. This is because you have now put a lower resistance path in parallel with the original load.

The reason it heats up is that being the "path of least resistance" all the current wants to flow through it rather than the proper path of higher resistance.

You create a situation where only part of the wire is conducting all of the current and it heats up much in the same way as the filament in a light bulb or the element in an oven.

A short will do one of two things: trip the breaker or spark and melt the strand of wire.

Unless there are HIGHLY flammable materials around this micro-spark it is not going to cause a fire.

When you have an open circuit that is a different situation. It creates a "spark gap" that causes heat as a spark of current jumps between the two near touching conductors.

It is not "higher resistance" at all. It is a SPARK GAP.

You are correct, that in this situation it will not trip a breaker and can cause a fire.

Higher resistance is what happens when you have too much current draw on wire or connector. This is common when light duty extension cords are used for heavy current items.

In this case, so long as the current draw is lower than that of the circuit breaker, the wire will heat and degrade the insulation causing a fire hazard.

A circuit breaker doesn't sense resistance, it senses amperage/current draw. In the case where you are plugging too many devices into one circuit it exceeds the amperage rating and trips the breaker. In a case where you have a short it creates a path of low/no resistance which in turn conducts too much current and trips the breaker.

Now for a more complex situation.

A power cord that has been crushed and the insulation is worn though causing an INTERMITTENT shorting.

In this case the wires are shorting and sparking.

If for some improbably reason it doesn't trip your breaker then you would obviously smell it.

Electrical fires often take place in VERY old components or buildings where heat or spark ignites dust. This is a situation where the electrical components are being used beyond their useful life.

UL listing can't help.

The other category of common electrical fires are USER ERROR where a person exceeds the maximum rating of a cord or connector or is using a damaged cord or connector.

UL listings can't help you here either.

As for pride in selling to Asian customers...

That is different from pride in my products. It is the pride of re-claiming what was lost.

At this time in history the US owes a significant percentage of our national debt to Asian countries.

There is NO DOUBT that this is going to end badly for our children and our children's children.

Signs of recession and financial imbalance are all around us and only getting worse.

If you can't understand my pride in selling US made products to the countries to whom we owe the most debt as a nation then your understanding of "balance of trade" and "international finance" are as limited as your knowledge of electronics.

Fuzzbutt17

As for Simple Q, he may be knowlegable, but it was quite obvious he was looking for a fight if you read his comments in context.

Also, in the case of a power cord having a short, it is ONLY possible that it would create a lower resistance path.

It would create a zero load situation, at least for an instant, until either it blew the breaker or melted the shorting strand.

There is NO POSSIBLITY of a higher resistance situation.

You're still not getting it.

I'm not talking about a higher resistance compared to the resistance prior to the short. I'm talking about the resistance of the short itself.

No short is going to have ZERO resistance, and not all shorts are created equal. Some shorts will involve a higher resistance than others.

The point I am making is that the lower the resistance of the short, the less chance there would be for significant heating to be developed. If the wires got all mashed together somehow, that would be about as low a resistance a short as you could imagine and would be the best case scenario as this would most likely allow sufficient current to trip the breaker or blow the fuse.

Now consider a different kind of short. One where there is a failure in the insulation. It hasn't failed to the point that it allows physical contact between conductors, but such that the insulation's resistance is low enough as to cause enough current to flow through that resistance to heat it up and cause it to melt or worst case, catch fire.

In this case, the short would have been of a HIGHER RESISTANCE than the short previously described. And could be high enough so as not to allow enough current to flow to trip the breaker or blow the fuse.

You get it now?

Oh Yeah! My Mojo-Audio power cord just went up in flames. I get the $10K!!! I'm in the money, I'm in the money!!! Ben, I will email you where to PayPal the money! Wait, Oh no, the fire just melted my camcorder, so I lost the entire video, rats! I'll have to get back to everyone as my home just burst into flames and I have to call the local fire department! I wish I lived with Rx8man next to the fire house!

Fuzzbutt17

Simple Q...obviously a fitting name.

It's Simply, not Simple. Perhaps a new eyeglass prescription is in order.

Don't say I didn't warn you about showing your ignorance of electronics.

Yes, I've only been designing and building electronics for the past 30 years. Never managed to learn a thing in all that time.

When you have a short the ONLY possibility is that you have LOWERED resistance. This is because you have now put a lower resistance path in parallel with the original load.

THAT'S not the resistance I have been referring to. I have been referring to the resistance of the SHORT ITSELF.

I made this clear previously when I said "When I refer to higher resistance, I'M TALKING ABOUT THE RESISTANCE OF THE SHORTED CONNECTION (emphasis added). If it's an exceedingly low resistance, then it won't cause any heating to speak of."

Did you not bother to read what I wrote? I wrote it in rather simple English so I don't see why it would be difficult to understand to anyone who bothered to read it.

The reason it heats up is that being the "path of least resistance" all the current wants to flow through it rather than the proper path of higher resistance.

No, not all of the current necessarily wants to flow through it unless the other end of the cable is open which may or may not be the case. The current divides proportionally to the resistances in parallel. And if you want to get technical, the resistance increases as the wire heats up.

You create a situation where only part of the wire is conducting all of the current and it heats up much in the same way as the filament in a light bulb or the element in an oven.

See above.

A short will do one of two things: trip the breaker or spark and melt the strand of wire.

You're forgetting number three. The wire simply heats up.

For it to melt, it must exceed its melting point. And to exceed its melting point (which is just a little over 1,000 degrees), it would require a sufficient amount of current. And there's no guarantee of that because how much current is drawn depends on the resistance.

If the resistance is high enough (and again, this is the "high resistance" I've been referring to), it won't melt. And there are many materials whose flash point is well below 1,000 degrees.

When you have an open circuit that is a different situation. It creates a "spark gap" that causes heat as a spark of current jumps between the two near touching conductors.

It is not "higher resistance" at all. It is a SPARK GAP.

Again you drone on as if you never bothered to read what I actually wrote.

I didn't say an open circuit. I said a partial open. This is a case where the circuit hasn't gone fully open, but instead presents a high enough resistance to cause significant heating.

In a case where you have a short it creates a path of low/no resistance which in turn conducts too much current and trips the breaker.

Only if the short's resistance is low enough to cause the breaker to trip. If the resistance is high enough, it won't cause the the breaker to trip but may still heat up to the point that it can cause a fire.

As for pride in selling to Asian customers...

That is different from pride in my products. It is the pride of re-claiming what was lost.

At this time in history the US owes a significant percentage of our national debt to Asian countries.

There is NO DOUBT that this is going to end badly for our children and our children's children.

Signs of recession and financial imbalance are all around us and only getting worse.

Fair 'nuff.