"Wow this bag of phone chargers is heavy"

**Scrap man** · 07-26-2011, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by little726

I'm new here and have looked through the forum for the answer to a question I have. I just can't find an answer. Here goes: I tore apart a phone charger and found 2 windings with wire on them. One is shiny cooper wire, the other is bright red wire.

Is the bright red wire copper?

Yes, it's just painted. Someone mentioned somewhere on here that the makers of the windings will have them painted so the workers know what windings go where and don't mix them up.

**harrisvh** · 09-24-2011, 10:15 PM

Originally Posted by Scrap man

Yes, it's just painted. Someone mentioned somewhere on here that the makers of the windings will have them painted so the workers know what windings go where and don't mix them up.

Hi there, new here, just introduced myself a minute ago! -the windings are coated with a thin resin to provide insulation between each wire, the transformers work by either stepping up voltage and decreasing current or stepping down voltage and increasing current. This is done by the number of coils on opposite sides of the transformer which is why you will see one side has bigger coils but less of them and the other has smaller coils but more of them. If there was no insulation between the wires then both sides would basically count as 1 big wire on each side and so the transformer won't do it's job.

Even if it looks pure and not an off red orange colour it is still coated and this is why yards pay less for it. This applies to all wires in transformers, electromagnets and motors.