I'm doing a 27MHz mid power directional coupler on which the primary of the current sense transformer will be made out of a short piece of
0.047" microcoax hardline, and I'm trying to decide which center conductor I can use (plain copper or copper plated steel wire).The hardline will be something like
or
At 27MHz skin depth is 12um.
Anyone knowing what the copper thickness is, on those steel plated center conductors?
-- Thanks, Fred.
Ask them for the spec sheet. They look like this but this is an example of copper where 3.4.1. specs the plating thicknesss of the silver:
Usually in micro-inches, so you guys would have to translate :-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Forgot to mention, Monday is a holiday in the US (Labor Day)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
No idea, but it might be better to go for solid copper - plated silver can have a much lower conductivity than solid silver of the same thickness, and a lower conductivity than solid copper (despite the fact that soild silver at 6.3E7, has a higher electrical conductivity than solid copper 5.96E7 ) and plated copper on steel may well be unespectedly lossy.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
And as I found out when doing some cavity SRD power multipliers, there is one hell of a difference when you specify HARD silver plating rather than just silver plating. Something around a 30% efficiency loss between "regular" silver plating and hard silver plating.
Don't expect me to be able to tell you the chemical or process between the two, but there is a difference (and in price, too).
Jim
Why consider Cu plated steel, mechanical strength?
Solid silver wire isn't that expensive, and steel has awkward magnetic properties in context anyway.
Concur. Also consider that silver oxide is conductive, but none of the other metals' oxides are.
Well, I think it's important.
Mark L. Fergerson
f
It's one of the options that the manufacturers make and the stocking distributors sell.
You could try to get someone to make you a batch of co-ax with a solid silver centre wire, but you'd probably have to buy a great deal of cable to get any at all.
It isn't exactly evidence-based - you'd need a fairly precise neasuring system to see the differences, and those measurements that have been done do seem to suggest that silver-plating is a waste of time.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmgen
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