Non-compliant cable products - Copper Coated Aluminium
Date: 5/12/2011
In the ongoing effort to educate the structured cabling industry on non-compliant cable products, the CCCA and CDA are drawing attention to non-compliant cable designs using copper clad aluminium conductors. The CCCA has encountered several sources in the U.S. marketing Category 5e and Category 6 communications cables made with copper clad aluminium conductors instead of solid copper conductors. Communications cables made with copper clad aluminium conductors violate several industry standards, including UL safety standard UL444. Consequently, such cables made with copper clad aluminium conductors do not have a valid safety listing and cannot be legally installed into areas of buildings which require CM, CMG, CMX, CMR or CMP rated cables.
The Copper Development Association (CDA), the market development, engineering and information services arm of the copper industry, also expressed safety and performance concerns over the proliferation of non-compliant copper clad aluminium conductors for certain data cable applications.
The Telecommunications Industry Association's TIA 568C.2 specification (Section 5.3) requires compliance to ANSI/ICEA S-90-661-2006 and ANSI/ICEA S-102-732 which both include the following language: "Solid conductors shall consist of commercially pure, annealed, bare copper..."
Kevin Ressler, CCCA Chairman stated, "The use of copper clad aluminium conductors in cable designs is a relatively new development, so some contractors may be unaware that such cable does not meet the NEC, UL, and TIA codes and standards referenced above. Fortunately, copper clad aluminium conductors can easily be detected by scraping the thin copper surface, exposing the underlying bright aluminium."
As with its previous alerts concerning non-compliant cables, the CCCA points out that the best practice to assure quality cable and network performance is to buy from known brands and quality distributors.
