What is something that nearly every modern building - every modern structure, even, as well as most modern devices - contains, yet is rarely ever even thought of? What is the first thing you do when you enter a dark room at your office or in your home? More than likely you turn on the lights, right?

The truth is that every modern structure, including some things that you might not necessarily even think of as structures, contains wiring, and not just for lighting. Many do contain wiring for lighting, although that example was utilized primarily for its relatable nature and not for its universality. In truth, structures including buildings and boats, and even small devices, are all intricately wired in order to ensure their functionality, as energy makes the world go round.

Oddly enough, everyone in our society is nearly completely dependent on this energy, yet unless you are personally an electrical engineer, you are probably equally unlikely to give any thought to all of the different types of wiring that make modern life possible. Rest assured, there are many, many different types of electrical wire and cable, and each has its own specialized uses in engineering.

Wire and cable do much more than just keep the lights on, as you are about to find out in this article. They supply power to entire plants and operations, provide industrial endeavors with energy, allow for continuous monitoring of systems, keep boats and ships on course, and much more.

In this article we are going to offer a rundown of our electrical wire and cable by the categories as they appear on our website. Keep in mind that this is not a scientific endeavor and that it is also not comprehensive. We will be as pragmatic and straightforward in our approach as possible, so if you need more in depth or quantitative on any of our products, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at 800-262-1598 or via email at sales@ewcswire.com. Otherwise take a look through this short guide for a little more information on some of the many different kinds of wire and cable that we offer here at EWCSWire.com.

Copper Wire and Cable
Copper wires and cables are probably the most widely recognizable electrical conductors out there, but even with that said there is something we’d like to clear up for some of our readers. In that sentence we used several terms on which we would like to take the opportunity to shed a little bit of light.

The term conductor can be applied to a material that conducts a flow of electricity in the form of a stream of electrons. There are many different factors that go into making a conductor viable for any given purposes, but for the most part they take the form of metals such as copper, gold and aluminum that are chosen, among other things, for their conductivity, resistance, ductility and malleability, as well their their price and availability. The other terms we used were wire and cable. To be concise, a wire is a single stranded conductor, and a cable is a bunch of conductors braided together. So think of it this way - if there is one strand of metal it is a wire, but once you add wires together in a collective it becomes a cable.

With that out of the way, the reason most people are familiar with the use of copper as an electrical conductor is because it is good for a lot of different electrical applications. Copper conducts electricity with a fair facility, offers a pretty low resistance so it doesn’t overheat too easily, and is fairly flexible and not brittle so it can be easily worked with. Its resistance to heat cannot be overstated. One of the main reasons that copper is put into such widespread use as a conductor is because of this. Its low resistance makes it perfectly suited to resist overheating. Among other things, this reduces the risk of fire. In addition, copper, though semi precious, is a relatively cost effective solution for most applications.

Here on our site you can find copper electrical wire and cable for a wide variety of uses in different ratings and sizes. For example, we offer copper building wire rated at 600 volts from 2 to 6 American Wire Gauge (AWG) with many different colors of insulating material so that one can easily keep track of circuits through color coding.

We also sell copper tray cables that have become increasingly popular over time as the benefits of cables begin to outweigh the benefits of conduits. Conduits provide a lot of protection to the cables within them, but they are prone to overheating and it is very difficult to pull cable and wires through them. As a result, cable trays have been implemented in some locations and for these, tray cable should be used. Some of our cables are approved for direct burial and are sunlight resistant, making them suitable for a number of different situations.

Among our copper electrical cables and wires we also offer Teck Armored Cable, which is very useful in demanding industrial settings. We offer 8 AWG Teck Armored Cable rated to 1000 volts as well as armored cable in 10, 12 and 14 AWG rated to 600. They are commonly used in mining and industrial applications and thus are built to defy the rigors of these environments. Our Teck 90 cables have XLP insulated conductors as well as a bare copper ground wire and an inner PVC jacket. Even on top of that they are protected by either aluminum or galvanized steel interlocking armor and another layer of PVC jacketing, which is not only chemical resistant but sunlight resistant as well.

Aluminum Wire and Cable
We also sell aluminum electrical wire and cables on our website as well, in the form of building wire as well as triplex and quadraplex cables. You might be wondering why we would offer aluminum cables when copper conductors are fitting in most situations, but there are a number of reasons for this. In truth, in certain situations where specific conditions apply, aluminum actually has a number of distinct advantages over copper wiring.

The first is that aluminum is much more cost efficient than copper. Copper is significantly more expensive than aluminum which can mean that you copper can automatically multiply the costs of laying wires. Aluminum is also, in many cases, more widely available. Of course there are other factors at play, but all things being equal aluminum is as widely available if not more than copper while at the same time being cheaper.

It doesn’t end there, though. Aluminum wire and cable are much, much lighter than copper. That means that the infrastructure required to support them can necessarily be much more affordable than the infrastructure required for laying copper circuits. This becomes a pronounced issue with respect to shipping as well as when wiring aloft where weight can become a concern. That makes it easier to work with overhead as well as more affordable.

In addition, aluminum is also very ductile and easy to work with. The same can be said for copper, and we have said it, but when you factor in the fact that aluminum is lighter, it throws this benefit into relief.

As if that wasn’t enough, there is this real kicker to consider. Aluminum is actually a more efficient conductor than copper, which means that it is capable of transporting electrons more efficiently.

At this point you might be wondering why people use copper at all if aluminum is a superior conductor that is also cheaper and lighter. It would seem the other way around, that engineers would be willing to work with a heavier, more expensive material as compensation for its superior performance. However, there are a few distinct disadvantages of aluminum that have not yet been uncovered.

Despite the fact that aluminum is an excellent conductor, if it is not wired and connected properly, it poses a fairly high risk of overheating, especially at connections. This means that extreme care must be exercised when laying or implementing aluminum wiring as all wiring connectors and fittings must be approved for use with it in order to prevent the overheating that can pose a fire risk. This is the key disadvantage of aluminum wiring, however, and if proper care is taken to forestall overheating and ensure the safety of the circuit, then aluminum can in practice offer the benefits we have enumerated.

Instrumentation Cable
In addition to the copper and aluminum wires and cables we have already explored, we offer electrical wire and cable for other more specialized purposes as well. One of these categories is instrumentation cable.

We offer instrumentation cables like fire alarm cables and security system cables that are intended to provide continuous monitoring of systems and prevent any downtime or oversight. Many of them draw very little power and can operate on a lower supply than other systems in order to prevent a loss of continuous observation. Some of these cables are specially rated for use in very specific situations. For example, our fire alarm cables can be broadly subdivided into plenum rated and non plenum rated cables, for those that are approved for use in the plenum space of a building and those that are not. In addition, some of these cables have additional design features such as being heat resistant and non toxic so that they do not emit toxic smoke in the event of their exposure to fire.

Marine Cables
In addition to these categories of cables, we also carry marine cables for usage on boats. We have shown the differences between copper and aluminum cables and exposed some of the advantages and disadvantages of each, but this is slightly different with marine cable.

Marine cable is defined by the features it offers to make it useful in marine environments or actually on a boat at sea. Consider the fact that boats are constantly tossed about and subject to a large amount of vibration day in and day out. Even in calm weather, a boat will still be in constant movement, and if its engines are operational, it will be subject to endless vibration.

Additionally, marine environments are famous for their corrosive environments. Chemical nobility seems to be a nonexistent thing once ocean water and salt spray are involved, and they make quick work of any exposed, reactive elements and compounds. To put that in perspective, iron, copper and aluminum - all of which you will find on boats - are reactive. That’s one of the reasons that brass is more popular on boats than steel - it is less subject to corrosion.

In short, marine cables are made up of many individual copper stranded wire conductors that themselves are individually tinned to resist corrosion. The effect is twofold, and one is to help forestall corrosion. The other is that the higher number of thin conductors makes the cables more flexible than they would be otherwise, which is instrumental in making the cables resistant to the constant motion of boats at sea.

Welding Cables
We also sell welding cables on our website, which, like marine cables, are defined but a few features that make them useful in the environments in which they will customarily be put to use. Generally, since welding is done in situ, that means that the welding equipment has to be brought to the place where the welding will occur. This necessitates a highly flexible cable. Additionally, those environments can be extremely hot or cold while at the same time being very wet or presenting chemical hazards like oil. You may have guessed it already, but our welding cables are defined chiefly by two things - their flexibility and their resistance to certain environmental hazards like temperature and abrasion, as well as resistance to some chemicals.

As we stated, this is only a cursory overview of our collection of some common types of wires and cables here at EWCS Wire. If you would like to learn more about the construction of our many different types of wire, as well as their uses, please reach out to us. You can contact us via the live chat on our homepage, by email at sales@EWCSWire.com or by phone at 800-262-1598.