copper wire scraps and odd lengths
lekpeter
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
curious what you guys do with your scrap electric cables (romex, ac)
any easy way, short of manual ripping each cable and stripping each conductor, to get to the bare copper?
thanks
lek
putty and paint, make it what it ain’t
Replies
If you are going to recycle for scrap, they generally have a multiplier they apply to the wire that assumes how much of the weight is actually copper (.6, .7, etc). Not sure if the xtra work would justify the extra money.
If this is for some sort of science or art project and you need the bare copper, I don't know of another easy way.
Junkhound may tell you about he wire stripper he built for $0.50 from peanut butter, dental floss, recovered floor staples, and the motor from a '76 caddy power window operator; but that's just a guess ;-P
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Since I felt my ears burn....
I have stretched 15 ft pieces of romex taut between a couple of posts with the backhoe or a comealong, rotated till all flat, then just walked a drawknife along it (flat side up) when I needed just a little more bare wire.
Other than that, you can wait for a windy day, violate all the clean air laws, and throw it in a fire. Never done that of course, at least not since '89.
I hear around here, they won't accept burnt off wire for recycling.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" If ya plan to face tomorrow, do it soon"
How they gonna know it was ever burnt if you throw it on the gravel driveway and drive over it for a few weeks <G>
Now yer talkin'! Count on Junkhound for the cleverest solution to the problem!
The insulation on Romex is nylon, not PVC. And though I've heard it said here, I seriously doubt there's much lead in the insulation. Burn it in a hot enough fire and there's not much of a problem with pollution. Of course most people wouldn't burn it on a hot enough fire, so then they get the nasty stink and black smoke. Either way, the scrap dealers definitely don't like burned wire because they get a poor price for it from the people they sell to- too much copper oxide.
If the smelters could guarantee that all they got was Romex in their scrap wire pile, they wouldn't bother separating out the insulation- that'd be throwing away fuel! But unfortunately they get lots of PVC and Teflon-insulated wire too, and that stuff makes dioxin and hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids when you burn it- not good for the refractories in the furnace, much less the people down wind!
Best time to burn is during a snow storm - a natural precipater; ends up coming back down and burning again. Then coil the wire, put it in a joint compound bucket and soak in muratic acid for a few minutes and you have clean wire. Being a chemist, I'm used to doing this but for those not so inclined, just sell the wire as is, you will be safer.
ETG,
I know burning is not popular, but just assume for a moment we do it.
What would be a good container or arrangement for doing it?
lekputty and paint, make it what it aint
I live on a farm, so I just go out to my "burn pile." But I see a lot of folks use a 55 gal drum.
Actually there are two layers of insulation.The outside is a thin clear layer of nylon. I think that the many body of the insulation is PVC.In fact now that I have looked it up I am sure."NM-B: Nonmetallic-Sheathed Cable. The "B" denotes that individual conductor insulation is rated 90°C; however, ampacity is limited to that for a 60°C conductor (see NEC Section 336-26, 1999 edition). Thermoplastic (PVC) conductor insulation-nylon jacketed, with overall PVC cable jacket."
D'oh!
Somehow that outer sheath did seem a little too pliable for nylon!
If indeed this is true and the outer sheath is PVC, DO NOT BURN THIS STUFF! Burning PVC is a very bad idea!
Bill: you're awesome- your post not only set me straight, but answered another question I'd meant to ask. I picked up some GU-type halogen light fixtures at the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore which have "90 C conductor required" written all over the box. Canadian Romex NMD90 cable is stamped with the minimum temperature, not the maximum. After reading your note I confirmed that the "90" in the Canadian wire spec means 90 C conductor rating per your reference to the US NM-B. So I'm good to go with ordinary NMD90 cable entering these fixtures.
So: for burning wire, this is really bad news. What it means is that only the thin little clear, hard outer layer on each conductor's insulation is nylon- all the rest is PVC. Definitely very bad news if you burn it!
"Other than that, you can wait for a windy day, violate all the clean air laws, and throw it in a fire. Never done that of course, at least not since '89. "
I had a brother-in-law who was sort of a self-employed scrap dealer, and he did that all the time. Along with all the other stuff he dragged home and broke up in the back yard (batteries, old cars, air conditioners, etc.) I figure my sister is probably living on top of a Superfund site today.
I appreciate all the replies and suggestions.
I should have mentioned it initially, but over the past few years I've accumulated lots of cutoffs and odd lengths from various jobs, and with the basement needing cleaning--but more importantly-- with the current price of copper, I was trying to get a little more for it from the scrap yard without working too hard.
My buddy suggested burning it, but the BOSS (i.e., wife) said no way.
Thanks again.
putty and paint, make it what it aint.
They won't take burn't stuff here, either.
Why pollute more- don't burn it.
My dad told me in the late 1940's they were collecting wires from bomb destroyed houses in Germany(just after WW 2). They put them on a pile and set fire to them to burn off the insulation. I guess you couldn't do that today any more.Martin
My dad told me in the late 1940's they were collecting wires from bomb destroyed houses in Germany(just after WW 2). They put them on a pile and set fire to them to burn off the insulation. I guess you couldn't do that today any more.
Wondering...that wire was probably the type w/ cloth insulation around it. The fumes from that ain't gonna kill anybody unless it's from smoke inhalation... : )
Jason
I don't know if the wires at that time were run inside the stucco wall's or if they were nailed to the outside of the walls?Martin
I think the commercial process is to grind the insulated wire up into like sawdust and then separate that by weight. Maybe with water or an air bath.
!Peter
Saw a Dirty Jobs show where the host was at a scrap yard in St. Louis. They had a machine that they fed wire through. It would slit it up the side and they could just pull the wire out.jt8
'Grandpa used to say "know your role and shut your hole." ' --Stilletto
An old timer electrician I knew would beat on the wire ontop of an anvil. That made the wire rip thru the sheathing. Lots of exercise doing that.
If you have enough to make it worthwhile, a variation on Phil's crush-thru method should work. What you need to make is a pair of steel rollers, one an idler, and the other driven by a big hand crank or maybe a motor, and mounted so you can adjust the distance between them to roughly the diameter of the copper wire. Turn the crank, feed in some wire, and adjust the roller spacing to get the insulation crushed thru without wasted effort. You can sell the copper, and toss the insulation in the plastic recycling bin.
-- J.S.
John,
Your idea made me think of an old (about 30 years) janitor's mop bucket that I own that is all steel, including the rollers. and you stand on a pedal to adjust the load on the mop, while standing on a metal projection found on the opposite side of the bottom of the bucket with your other leg for balance. I'll have to dig it out and see how much effort's involved.
lekputty and paint, make it what it ain't
I hope it turns out to be strong enough, but I kinda doubt it would be. I was thinking something more like a rail bending machine.
-- J.S.
I actually had such a machine - a pair of hardened steel rollers which were linked together by gears - one roller was belt-driven by an electric motor. The bottom (driven) roller was fixed, and the upper had a tension adjustment. I am a telecom contractor, and in my poorer days, this was a great way to strip otherwise junk 25-pair telecom cable into bare copper.
I got rid of the machine a couple of years ago when we were cleaning out the basement. It was really pretty labor intensive - I had to strip the outer jacket off of the cable, and then cut the remaining wire into about 3 or 4 foot lengths. We ran the wire strand by strand through the rollers. Of course, I had to build an input shield so we wouldn't also run our fingers through the machine.
When it worked well, the copper would fly straight out, and the pvc insulation would fly off to the sides. Unfortunately, with a lot of older wire, the pvc would be stuck to the copper, and we would still have to manually peel it off after running it through the rollers.
Bob
Edited 9/29/2006 3:39 pm ET by bobguindon
Unless you have tons of wire it is not worth the effort to strip it.
"When all else fails, read the directions"
Unless you are a homeless person with a lot of free time and a scrap yad in the neighborhood. I have seen many a barrel fire stripping cable under the Queensboro Bridge ramps in Queens. They used to steel the trolley wire for the main span inspection travelers. The travellers were relocated to the center of the deck, but I don't know how effective that was....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
Like some of the other posts said, a lot of scrap dealers will not take burnt wire.----------------------------------------------------------------------
"When all else fails, read the directions"
The flyer in my most recent electric bill told of some people who are stealing wire from sub-stations. Live wire. Maybe they are trying to burn the insullation off at the same time they steal it...And our vet has had the aluminum fence around his dog run stolen twice. Now he switched to something with no scrap value.
Same thing happened here in Vancouver not to long ago. A guy tried to steal wire out of a sub station- he got electrocuted. Not that feel bad for him, just his family. Crooks are stealing fencing in daylight, removing brass plagues from memorial sites. Nothing is safe anymore.
Somebody got my alluminum roof copeing about a month ago. They got about 50 bucks after I paid close to three hundred for the material and the bending. I knew they were stealing copper but never even thought about alluminum.