ali wire from motors

i was thinking of taking the ali wire out of electric motors and was wandering what the ali wire is worth? i know the electric motor is worth 0.05 a pound i feel thats low and think that the wire is worth more is this true? what kind of ali would it be labeled as? ec?

Originally Posted by mike1

i was thinking of taking the ali wire out of electric motors and was wandering what the ali wire is worth? i know the electric motor is worth 0.05 a pound i feel thats low and think that the wire is worth more is this true? what kind of ali would it be labeled as? ec?

Varnished aluminum wire = dirty aluminum.

I sell the varnished aluminum as old sheet.

You can probably sell the rotor as low breakage too.

Originally Posted by mike1

i was thinking of taking the ali wire out of electric motors and was wandering what the ali wire is worth? i know the electric motor is worth 0.05 a pound i feel thats low and think that the wire is worth more is this true? what kind of ali would it be labeled as? ec?

What are you getting for light iron?

Here in NJ/PA light iron is $6.50/hundred, aluminum electric motors $12.00/hundred and copper electric motors $15.00/hundred.

I take motors to the yard that says "electric motors are electric motors" and pays $15.00/hundred for all of them.

Aluminum has a density of 0.098 lb/cu in and copper 0.324 lb/cu in. So for the same volume copper has more than 3 times the weight of aluminum.

And big price difference, #2 copper is $2.00/lb and aluminum $0.40/lb.

I can see making the effort to remove copper from larger electric motors, but not worth the effort to remove aluminum.

Again Mike, these are questions you should be asking your yard. Yes you get good answers from members based on pricing and grading of scrap from their yard but yours could be completely different. Talk to your yard.
The yard I go to pays 15 cents a pound for electric motors but they have to be copper. I might get 2 or 3 a year and have only seen 1 that had aluminum wire since I began scrapping.
With that number it's not worth it to me to break down a motor. I could be breaking down 4 or 5 computers in the time it takes to break down a 30 cent motor.
They go in the shred pile.
I'm not saying you or anyone else shouldn't break down electric motors and I'm certainly not saying that's it's a waste of time.....it's just not how I do it.
As Sir always says, YMMV.