Copper Coated Aluminium Magnesium Wire

Copper-coated aluminiurn magnesium wire, commonly abbreviated as CCAMW or CCAM, is an electrical conductor composed of an inner aluminium core and outer copper coating.

The properties of copper-coated aluminium wire include:

• Lighter than pure copper
• Higher electrical conductivity than pure aluminium
• Higher strength than aluminium
• Better solderability than aluminium, due to the lack of the oxide layer which prevents solder adhesion when soldering bare aluminium.
• Less expensive than a pure copper wire

The skin effect causes alternating current to concentrate on the more-conductive copper coating of the conductor, causing the resistance of the wire to approach that of a pure copper wire at high frequencies, which rnakes the copper-coated alurninium wire a good fit for such applications. The skin effect is also utilized in copper-coated steel wire such as RG-6 coax, which is also commonly used in high frequency applications with high strength requirements.