Earthing braid

[The Hatter]

My cars have miles of flat earthing braid like this...



Does anyone know a source for replacing this? I can buy 'round' braid but I haven't found a source for this flat stuff.

[mrzigazaga]

Hi Mate...You could try these...
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=f...
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=f...

[phillpot]

Or there's always Ebay........ clicky

[Tasmin200]

There's nothing wrong with his bloomin earthing braid. He just likes to show off pitcures of 'that' chassis to make us all jealous

[The Hatter]

Yep Tas200, any chance of a chassis pic and I'm there!



On the braid subject... I'll check out those sources Mark, hopefully I won't have to buy a hundred metres! I'll measure up the stuff I've got and see if I can get a match. It's dull silver on the cars, so I guess it's tinned copper - anyone know?

The ebay listing is interesting but I don't think TVR used the stuff with end connections soldered on; the car has all sorts of odd lengths so I think they just used it off a roll and pierced it to get the bolts through it and onto the car. It's all over the place from the engine earths to the front wishbones, the wiper motor and the fuel tank to name a few...

[Wedg1e]

Yes it would generally be tinned copper: there's a cheat's way to make braided straps

Find a length of quality coaxial cable, strip the outer sheath and pull out the inner core with its insulator. Then squash the braiding flat!
It has to be quality cable and about RG-8 size. Cheaper stuff has a poor braiding and RG-174 or similar is too small...

[cuneus]

Stainless chassis and a car lift - you're off the Xmas card list!

[Transmitter Man]

Martin,

I'd go for tinned copper any day over bare copper - it won't oxidise.

Phil
420 SEAC

[The Hatter]

Not my lift David, just a fortuitous photo oportunity at the exhaust fabricators.

Ian, I don't have a ready supply of Co-ax, I'll investigate but I doubt lengths of that are cheap?

[Jack Valiant]

Martin, might be worth looking at some of the ex military earth bonding kit for mobile radio installations about on Fbay. They used just this sort of gear, some of which was tinned and rubber sealed and built to last!!

[pasogrande]

I wonder what is so magic about braid. Why is it any different from a simple cable?

Wilf.

[Transmitter Man]

More flexible and normally offers even lower resistance due to cross section.

Phil
420 SEAC

[Wedg1e]

Transmitter Man said:

More flexible and normally offers even lower resistance due to cross section.

Phil
420 SEAC

...and easier to hide under carpet etc. when necessary

The braiding is all there to tie the metalwork together electrically: rolling wheels produce static charge which would raise the potential on the wishbones and steering components above that of the chassis; the resultant discharging of which would produce noise on your AM radio (along with the alternator and ignition system ). Obviously the rise of FM means this is less of a problem. On a GRP-bodied car some of it acts as earth returns for shell-mounted parts that would otherwise not be connected to battery negative (fuel tank sender for example).

[pasogrande]

Thanks Phil and Ian for reply. I'm still not really convinced.

The chassis is not part of the electrical circuitry used for earthing components. (Okay the engine is.) Each electrical item has its own positive and earth for it to work. The only purpose I know for the braid is to stop electrical "noise" caused by electrostatic charges from the GRP body. This is very low amperage so shouldn't need much cross-section. Any finely braided wire should do this. And as mentioned before, tinned copper is the best - which is why I like boat wire.

So I have two questions:

What am I missing here?

and Ian, Do they still make AM radios? I thought they went out with cassettes.

Wilf.

[Wedg1e]

pasogrande said:

and Ian, Do they still make AM radios? I thought they went out with cassettes.

Wilf.

They were certainly still making AM radios when TVR were still making Wedges

[Transmitter Man]

Broadcasting is my business.

Yes, they still make AM (medium waveband) radios, however the big guns in the industry are trying to ram DAB radio's down out necks and at the same time to phase out broadcasting on MW.

Analogue FM sounds superior to digital.

mediumwave or, amplitude modulation has the ability to sound superior to FM however the ever decreasing 'selectivity' of the filtering in far eastern made radio's and the limited number of broadcast transmitter engineers that understand the correct procedure in tuning antennas are a dying breed.

My engineer Mike was one of the engineers out on the Radio Caroline ship, the one in the 80's that sunk:

http://www.atlantidezine.it/wordpress/wp-content/u...

and when afloat: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2430/4098625634_c5bf...

He's older than me, and they ain't training new ones.

Peter 'Chicago' Murtha was the engineer on board the original Caroline ship in 64-67 and he and Mike designed the whole of the original Virgin Radio network of 34 MW transmitters to cover the UK.

Phil
420 SEAC