It's called electrolysis. The reaction of dis-similar metals. It normally
happens in a fluid environment, but even humidity can be enough, especially
when you add heat. (what do you think happens when you drive in the rain,
steam rises) In your case, the energy needed to run the coil made it even
worse. You already have electron swapping going on in a conductor anyways,
then add what starts as a little corrosion, which then adds resistance,
which generates more heat. It's a death spiral. And yes, the wire is copper,
the terminal is normally stainless, fastened to a steel screw terminal on
the coil which normally has some sort of tin/zinc coating.
Mark
""Jon N. Benignus"" <blkwidow1@primary.net> wrote in message
news:BA310614.14A9A%blkwidow1@primary.net...
>
> > In my case it could be that my copper coil wire had a metal connector on
the
> > end that reacted with the copper. Anyway, that's my two cents worth on
the
> > corrosion problem. Any metallurgists out there?
> That is why there are big problems with houses wired with aluminum rather
> than copper.
>
> Jon
> STL MO
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 06 2004 - 11:48:16 EST