Silver Tin Oxide Alloys
| Silver tin oxide alloys were developed and used in Japan as an environmentally friendly substitute for silver cadmium oxide. Beginning in the 1980's, these alloys were found to give superior performance in U.S. automotive relay applications where high amperage anti-welding characteristics are necessary. These alloys offer the advantages of high conductivity, excellent resistance to welding and a very low rate of electric erosion. Alloys of silver tin oxide are now available world wide and are still used widely for automotive applications in the U.S. and abroad. While silver tin oxide is most frequently found in contacts used for DC applications, there are also a few AC devices that use silver tin oxide.
Due to the alloys tendency toward cracking during the manufacturing of rivets, design parameters must be carefully controlled. Common silver tin oxide alloys available in the U.S. include 88% silver 12% tin oxide (88/12), 90/10, and 92/8 with the higher percentages of silver offering better cold heading capabilities and less tendency toward cracking during rivet manufacturing or subsequent staking into blades or terminals. All of these alloys can be made into either solid or ECONOMET (machine composite) rivets. Deringer offers either rivets or in-die staked assemblies made from silver tin oxide. Silver tin oxide alloys are also used widely in contact weld tape applications for the automotive industry. Welded tape contacts typically yield very large bond areas between the contact and substrate surfaces thus allowing high amperage passage through the device over many cycles. Deringer has lengthy experience and offers in-line automatic assemblies using state-of-the-art welding technology for silver tin oxide alloys. |