Bronze seems to be well down the scale of conductivity compared to silver https://www.thoughtco.com/the-most-c...element-606683
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Bronze seems to be well down the scale of conductivity compared to silver https://www.thoughtco.com/the-most-c...element-606683
The current carrying abilities of varying metals makes no difference if the conductor cross-section is adequate. Look it up.
I'll be sticking with copper . A decision based on my own experience .
Gary, The IEC leads I use are all Pencon, a company which I believe sold a lot of due to their use by Mac when producing the grey computers some time ago. Unfortunately they are also all grey, but many black were produced, and I recently bought one on Ebay, though I haven't seen them around for some time.
The conductors have been described as bronze by Farnell tech people, and they look copper coloured, but almost certainly are not copper which lacks spring ability, being malleable and ductile.
In the 60s copper beryllium alloys were used when a conductive spring was needed, but beryllium now has a very bad name H&S wise, so unlikely to be used. Who knows what the alloy is, but it is springy?
I also compress the plastic sides of the floating leads with a large toolmakers clamp to compress the floating 'U' shaped sockets, to ensure good interference fits.
Considering the small amount of metal involved in the series path, I doubt if the difference of resistance between materials would be even measurable, and they are also substantial in CSA.
If you Google Pencon mains leads, the third entry is a sheet from a (old) Farnell catalogue showing them, two thirds down the LHS.
common.leocom.jp/pdfcat/catalogpage/1_0401.pdf
These are without plug, and I use 5A 3 pin plugs.