ocd and confused ... copper or al ??

so all of these come out of a tv. I found some that were alum and now i am scared that most of what i thought was copper is al.. ? i dont have any experience at this but have been reading for a few months. you can see in the close ups were i scratch the wire w/ first a razor blade and then w/ a nail file. I have 3x this amount from different things and i can not tell if it is silver or just the copper becoming shiny after rubbing. sorry if this obvious to you guys. i have no experience w/ any of these materials except for reading over the last few months. i am ocd'n on this a bit and i know that you guys probably glance a wire and know what it is. so please, help a girl out

the 2 really red ones and odd yellowish one on the left side of the picture are alum right? what about the ones on the bottom of the pic w/ the scratches/file marks? can you guys see a shade of copper color and know w/out doing anything if it is copper? any hints? ive seen post on here commenting on alum wire that looks like the ones on the left side but could not find anything else except comments to use a file. is there a huge color change when you file?



Ive been having the same problem (scratching wire ocd like) on the wires that are always bunched together in 3-6+ all of different colors on circuit boards. The look silver but i think some of them are coated copper. They are so tiny. Is it possible to answer what they are most of the time or are there to many variables?

thanks for reading my rambling post and giving suggestions

the close ups are off the 3 pieces that are on the bottom center of the picture showing all the pieces.

At my local yard, they would take all of that as #2 Copper, except for that one bit of Bare Bright. In case you are wondering which the Bare Bright is, its the copper in the 2nd and 3rd pictures that looks like a brand new shiny penny. I would lump it all together (except the BB, of course) and see if your local yard will pass it as #2. It will not hurt to try. But yeah, only a file or grinder will show you the difference between copper coated aluminum and copper.

Hope this helps you out.

Be safe out there.

#2 copper by me as well

I agree with Mick. I use side cutters and just cut a few of the wires on each one, white/silvery in the middle they are Aluminum if they are redish then they are copper. That is how I check all of the wires, it'll be really quick to tell once you get used to doing it.

Thanks everyone! i guess i was just tripping on the color change when i filed/scratched. the one on the right in the bottom picture was especially troublesome... to me it appeared more silvery than the other 2 that i was worried about.. they all kind of changed colors when i scratched them.. so it is really apparent that there the color changes to silver when you scratch if it is alum? i tried to look at the ends but i guess i am blind bc i could not see any difference...i even looked through a lens i got from an old vhs recorder.

i spent 30 minutes going from bucket to bucket scratching wire lol

thanks again

Originally Posted by brucie

Thanks everyone! i guess i was just tripping on the color change when i filed/scratched. the one on the right in the bottom picture was especially troublesome... to me it appeared more silvery than the other 2 that i was worried about.. they all kind of changed colors when i scratched them.. so it is really apparent that there the color changes to silver when you scratch if it is alum? i tried to look at the ends but i guess i am blind bc i could not see any difference...i even looked through a lens i got from an old vhs recorder.

i spent 30 minutes going from bucket to bucket scratching wire lol

thanks again

Make sure you're not shorting your profits by scratching them. I just turned in my copper so I can't look to be sure, but there are 2 that "scratch" and look like aluminum but if you cut the ends you can tell they are copper. I made that mistake when I first started out.

When my son is in the mood to strip the ones out of TV's he cuts them with wire cutters first so he has one long piece and you can see better by looking at the whole thing cut. Not sure how much time you want to spend checking things but if you're having problems telling by just a few strands take the extra few seconds to cut a big section. Hate to see anyone loosing out on money! Another easy way once you've been doing it for a while is by the weight, most of the time you wont even have to cut the wires you just know.