New Idea for Antenna and Re-winding motors!

[Pocket_Rocket]

I got to thinking, How would it be if you could re-wind a motor with Gold wire instead of copper? Isn't Gold more conductive than copper? And what about a Gold Antenna? Do you guys think that would increase the distance of the signal?

[Joey]

People have already used silver wire, which I think is more conductive than gold. There's only a marginal difference anyway, so there probably isn't that much of a jump in performance.

[Rez]

I'm no metalurgist, but the real advantage of gold is that it doesn't corrode or oxidize. But corrosion usually happens between contacts of dissimilar metals, so the motor won't really see any improvment with gold windings. It's also *really* soft.

[Turnination Guy]

I am appalled that you think this is a NEW idea.

Nikkola Tesla must be rolling in his grave...

[Murcielago659]

Wow, cut the guy some slack. This thread is 9 months old, and it's been discussed a few times since then. Please check the dates on the threads before you post.

[Horshu]

I gave gold some thought a while back, but the primary problem with gold wire is that it is so soft that it wouldn't stand up to the thermal loads that a motor goes through. Silver is the best wire you can put in a motor AFAIK. I looked into high-temp superconducting wire, but a) "high" is a relative term...it still has to be cooled by liquid nitrogen, and b) as best I could tell, superconducting wire isn't more conducting than regular wire at room temperature. I read 1 thing that said copper-aluminum alloy wire is even better, but I couldn't find a 2nd source to verify much less a vendor. Hell, it's hard enough just finding vendors for silver wire. Only one I've found is rcbutlers.com with .50 and .55 wire. I'd love to find specialists in motor wire that have more varieties of widths and materials as well as datasheets.

[Soupy944]

Originally posted by Joey
People have already used silver wire, which I think is more conductive than gold. There's only a marginal difference anyway, so there probably isn't that much of a jump in performance.

gold is more conductive than silver.

[Horshu]

I've heard otherwise, but gold has the exceptional quality of not corroding while silver tarnishes.

Here's a post on this including some #s: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=28651

[Phred168]

Gold is far less conductive than silver. In the great scheme of natural materials, the order goes Silver, Copper, Gold, Aluminum, etc.

http://www.amm.com/index2.htm?/ref/conduct.HTM