Is it ok to run ground wires to an aluminum intake or heads? Or should they be moved when swapping to aluminum?

 

i have a braided ground wire going from the firewall to my plenum so it should be ok.

 

Aluminum is a good conductor of electricity, so it's perfectly OK to do that.

 

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but the power cables running to your house are likely aluminum...

 

Aluminum is a much better conductor then iron or steel. But not as good a copper, or the best conductor silver.

 

gold

 

"Dissimilar metals".
"Electronegativity difference".

The copper/steel of a ground strap & aluminum meet the criterial for the above. With moisture, you've got what's called a "battery".

Keep it clean & tight, coat with grease or undercoating after making the connection, it won't be a problem.

Of course, don't worry about it, and it probably still won't be a problem...

 

can someone give me a little more information. i took out 30 feet of copper pipe from my grandfathers house that included a vavle, pressure regulator, and pipe going towards the street. it looked rusted/corroded. the house is only 8 years old. the only thing i can think of is the fact that the ground there is always wet becasue of my gradmothers garden and the phone ground wire going into the ground.

now the question is, if there is an electrical charge on the metal with water in contact with it also, does the metal not oxidize/corrode/rust faster?

 

Copper/brass doesent rust.

Related to your question eletricity is supposed to keep an object from rusting, I doubt thats true but a few years ago some one was selling a small current device (battery) that when installed on your car it would prevent rust from forming.

 

Depends upon which way the electrons are flowing. If you put DC in the proper direction, it will actually surpress corrosion. Wrong way, it corrodes more quickly.

Pipeline companies bury a magnesium "anode" along the pipe, and impress a current between the anode & pipe through the ground. There are people who actually make a living following the line checking the potential between the ground & pipe to make sure it's being properly protected.

 

Gold is not a better conductor than silver. Gold has resistivity of 2.44 x10^-8 ohms meter, where copper has 1.7x10^-8 ohms meter and silver has 1.59x10^-8 ohms meter.

Gold has a high reisistance to oxidation.

I laugh my *** off when people buy gold plated RCA jacks because they think they are lowering the resistance of the patch cords. Plus the 200 millivolt signal in an RCA "circuit" is only dealing with maybe microamps.

John Q. Public is such an easy tool.

 

Wonder what that green/brown stuff is on copper??

I believe that brass is a lot more resistance to oxidizing than copper.

With that aside, electricians cover any aluminum at a contact/joining point with an anti-oxidation gel. So clean the aluminum grounding point with a wire brush, put on some grease and you are good to go!

 

Whew... that makes me glad that I buy the gold tipped cables to prevent against corrosion, and not for "lowering resistance"!

I thought aluminum wires were taken out of houses because of the wires melting.... wasn't aluminum house wiring back in the 60's or 70's?

 

That's oxidation, but not is the sense of rust. There is no alloy to break down in copper. Copper is an element. It doesn't break down or corrode. It errodes.

Brass is an alloy of Zinc and copper, and since galvanized steel is coated with zinc, it would make sense that brass would oxidize less than copper.

Same with bronze, which is a copper tin alloy.

Anyway....

 

Well, if we're going to do this....

Iron is an element as well. It rusts (oxidizes), just like copper does. The only difference is that iron oxide has a special name, rust, whereas copper oxide doesn't.

Anyways, I'll quit since the orig. question was answered already.

 

now wait 3 months after the connections have been sitting in the real world and measure the resistance across them.


the gold will have a lower resistance then the silver, mostly because of corrosion.



and just FYI.... Hg0.8Tl0.2Ba2Ca2Cu3O8.33 at 138 K and lower is the current record holder for least reistance.....