I was sitting around bored today with no work yet so I found another cheaper way to get copper wire for ribbing or copper johns etc. If you come accross cell phone plug in transformers take 5 minutes to tear it apart and you'll get a couple of chunks of wire 2 sizes. I gave FG some from sprinkler transformers awhile back that takes a bit more time but they give you alot and its a bit thicker. This stuff in the cell phone chargers is real small diameter looks to me it will work good.
In the 1st pic behind the yellow tape there is some pretty fine diameter this came out of a nokia
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dang.. I knew I should not of gotten rid of my old chargers.. [mad]
MacFly
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Right on. I never thought of Transformers either.
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Don't forget those small electric motors. Many have windings of different guage and colors of copper wire. I have salvaged wire of different types from many derelict appliances.
There is also magnet & coil wire available new all over the net or just from your local Radio Shack. The price is better with the salvage stuff. Plus I like to BREAK things!!!
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....ab=summary
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aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, free stuff is always good[
]. We all
have a lot of stuff around the house, just need to open our
eyes sometimes[
]
Thank you for the good idea.
Peter
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At work. There are 21 stores that most of them use a retrofit kits to use four foot T5 Fluorescent lights instead of T12 fluorescents. They all were installed about the same time I guess. We are experiencing a large number of failures of the electronic balast in each of the retrofits. I "retrofited" 8 fixtures to T10s this month. A while back I broke one of the ballast assemblies open. Found about 8 small transformers in it that used copper and red colored wires. Some of transformers are not worth messing with as the assembly has been coated with a varnish. The wire you get off them has lots of twist and bends and small hunks of the varnish stuck to them once you get the wire unwound. A couple of days ago I decided to give another go at some of the other transformers. These stripped of a lot cleaner. The wire diameter is about that of Uni Brassie size wire.
So lets see ..... 21 stores with about 10 fixtures per store and one balast per fixture. Wow! about 10 life times worth of brassie wire.
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with all the wire you could open your own uni brassie wire discount store and quit your job and go fishing.. :-)
MacFly
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If you happen to come across door bell wire or thermostat wire it works really good and can be picked up at most construction sites free of charge. also a little harder to come by but the left over wire that is on garage opener eyes.
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