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Hello Bill and all
To remove the enamel from litz wire I use paint
stripper called nitromorse.
Remove all the cotton/plastic insulation from
the cable end to be soldered to expose the multi strand enameled wires.
Brush the end of cable with a tooth brush to separate the strands and flatten
out.
Use the tooth brush to apply the paint stripper to
the splayed out cable strands, making sure it gets to all the strands. Leave for
about 10 minutes or more, then brush away the disolved enamel. I carry out this
process twice to ensure that all enamel has been removed. The final job is to
wash the exposed copper cable end with turps etc using a cloth, then
start soldering. I strip back about 1 inch of the cable end.
I have used the above procedure a number of times
and it works well. Paint stripper and a tooth brush are readily available. This
method is also economical on solder, no need for special tools like solder pots
and bunsen burners.
Any good paint stripper would do. My contents label
says the stripper contains 5 - 20 percent
Methylene dichloride, it does not say what the rest
is.
This is dangerous stuff to get on skin, eyes etc
and brush away from you so that it does not flick into your eyes or
skin.
The container/can specifies what precautions are
nessary for use.
I find although 3mm litz wire is marginally better
than normal 2.5mm stranded insulated wire the advantage is small compared to the
effort required to solder and weight considerations, especially for
large loops or horizontal wire antennas. I also have noticed since winding
my 0.5 mH loading coil for the vertical with 3 mm litz wire it is more
critical to keep on the nose at resonance, possibly because of the higher Q than
the previous 2.5 mm multi strand insulated copper wire.
I hope these observations help you.
My current 90 metre perimiter loop uses 2.5
mm insulated wire. I use it for RX only and as said previously I have to
throttle the RF gain back on even the very weak signals. I do not use any
preamps only the RX or Level meter SPM 12. I cannot see any advantage using
litz for this purpose.
To use the loop on TX there would be an advantage
using litz but probably the db gain would hardly be noticeable.
Very small loops on LF like 1 metre
square etc might be a different story, but this does not apply in my
case.
73 de Mal/G3KEV
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