On 2/19/24 19:49, Andy Smith wrote:
Hi,
On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 04:12:44PM -0300, Eike Lantzsch ZP5CGE / KY4PZ wrote:
The notorious red SATA cables - I threw them out long ago. The red
pigment eats up the fine copper threads, changing the impedance of the
cable and eventually making false contact before failing completely.
I've never heard of this. I did a bit of searching around and all I
can find is assertions that cable colour doesn't matter for SATA. I
can't seem to find anything about red pigment damaging the copper.
Have you got a reference so I can learn more?
Thanks,
Andy
Andy, I am the source of that red cable story. Actually it is not
technically a red but a magenta that fluoresces reddish to get that
brightness. And my history with early failure of cables that used that
dye to color the insulation goes back to the 1970's when the majority of
the CB radios sold were from japan, not china. Microphone cables that
included a push to talk start failing quite rapidly, The hot red wire
was used for that about 99% of the time..Open up the plug or the
microphone, the red wire had come unsoldered or broken off, attempt to
strip it back to good wire wasn't possible. there was no good copper
left anyplace in the cable. Cut an inch of it off where there should
have been copper, grab it by the end with suture clamps and thump it
with a pencil over white copy paper and shake the copper out of it as a
reddish, face powder fine dust, the copper had been I assume made into
copper oxide. It took every good tech in the country to start returning
mike cables back to the makers as defective before they got the message
that that die was poison. That took about 9 months before we could order
replacement cable specifing that they would be returned for credit if we
found any 'hot" red in the cables they were selling us. The shortage at
the time forced them to ship whatever they had I guess. If you goto
Loews or any electrical supply where they have to sell NEC approved
cabling, you will NOT see that red on any wire on the shelf or in the
rack. Then about the time sata came out, they found a new market for
that plastic dye, and sure as heck, we had cabling problems out the yang
in about 3 years. If you have that hot red wire anyplace in you
computer, it will fail, order more cables. Tan, Black, Yellow, but not
hot red. And sleep better knowing that time bomb has gone out with the
trash.
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
