Re: Cable colors and urban legends (was: Error Messages)
On 6/2/23 15:01, James H. H. Lampert wrote:
On 6/2/23 11:33 AM, Stefan Monnier wrote:
This is very hard to believe. I'm willing to believe that there have
been insulation dyes that have proved problematic, but if you've
encountered those problems in the 70s I find it *really* odd that it
would still affect cables from this century (e.g. sata cables).
Yes, and red-insulated wire has been in common use for many decades, on
everything from primary power wiring for buildings (when the "hot" wires
for multiple circuits, or for both "hot" wires of a 240VAC circuit, are
run together), to automotive wiring, to model train wiring, and I've
never heard of red (or any other particular color) insulation (or cable
jacketing, heat shrink, split-loom, or spiral-wrap) causing damage to
conductors. More likely, it was a particular material, possibly
containing a plasticizer that turned out to react with copper. And it's
rather unlikely that any such material wouldn't be "deprecated with
extreme prejudice" as soon as the problem was discovered.
Plain old red is fine. Its the hot red which veers off toward magenta
that is the problem child, that particular dye is almost fluorescent, it
gets your attention in a sea of the more commonly use red dye for
electrical stuff.
The J.A.Pan Company first used it in their cb radios in the earlier
1970's for the transmit button on the microphone and I spent the next 5
years replacing them with Beldon coil cables, then switched jobs, moved
1000 miles & never offered my services to another CB dealer, I was too
busy keeping a tv station on the air, spending the last 18+ years of my
working life as the CE at WDTV-5 in Weston/Clarksburg WV. My electronic
history goes back to about my 8th birthday when I built a crystal radio
from parts. So I grew up with vacuum tubes, quite school in 1948 and
went to work fixing the then brand new things still called tv's.
You may not have heard about it, but I've lived it. And because its
gaudy, and guarantees a replacement market in the future for more of
their product, the Chinese will keep using it.
And I'll repeat, I am a CET, something that probably less than 5% of the
working EE's could pass that test. CET's are a bit rare, I've yet to
meet another on the net. And I've been looking since 1985 when I logged
into delphi with a color computer running os-9 level 1.
--
JHHL
.
Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>
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