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The difference between copper and brass in knife switches?

Knife switch, generally used as a power switch, the conductor part of the knife switch disconnect is composed of copper. Brass knife switches are the most common, and brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, named for its often yellow color.

Electrical and thermal conductivity is good and the price is cheap. Wide range of uses, commonly used in the manufacture of electrical and thermal components, hardware supplies, etc.

The copper in the copper knife switch is a relatively pure industrial copper, which has good electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, only a little weaker than silver.

It has good moldability and can be processed into various semi-finished and finished products by hot and cold pressure. Red copper has good corrosion resistance in the atmosphere, seawater, and acidic environment.

The Red copper in the copper knife switch is also used in the manufacture of products requiring good electrical conductivity such as wires and cables and is widely used in the manufacture of electrical and thermal conductivity equipment.

Copper gets its name from its reddish-purple color when oxidized. According to the composition, it can be divided into T1, T2, T3, and other ordinary copper, as well as oxygen-free copper, deoxidized copper, and special copper. GRL knife switches all adopt copper T2.

In terms of composition, brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. The content of zinc is generally not more than 45%, which has no practical value. Red copper is industrial pure copper with a purity of up to 99.99% and is used in the electrical industry. Therefore, the GRL disconnect knife switch is made of red copper.

In terms of electrical conductivity, copper and brass have different electrical conductivity due to different copper content. The composition of red copper is mainly copper, so the conductivity is higher than silver. Brass has more components, so the conductivity is relatively low.GRL pays great attention to product quality, which is why GRL uses red copper for their industrial knife switch.

In terms of price, the price of red copper is much more expensive than that of brass, but its performance and quality are much higher than that of brass.

With the development of the industry, the power grid system has higher and higher requirements for product quality.

In the bidding documents of the State Grid Hebei junction box in 2021, one of the standards for the knife switch disconnector is that the “rated short-time withstand current” must reach 10kA /1S, and our anti-terror knife switch HD11FG-200/3 from GRL fully meets this standard, and the copper used in the knife switch is also made of red copper.

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