The roster
Listed alphabetically. This is the longest sheet in the register, and the one where a row tells a buyer least: the section spans products with nothing in common except that each is hard to make. The roster also lists members of more than one kind. See Manufacturer, distributor or processor before assuming every row is a mill.
| No. | Company | Also listed under | Where to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Atkore | NEMA profile atkore.com | |
| 02 | Champlain Cable Corporation | NEMA profile champcable.com | |
| 03 | Comtran Cable LLC | NEMA profile comtrancorp.com | |
| 04 | Freeport-McMoRan | NEMA profile fcx.com | |
| 05 | Judd Wire Inc. | NEMA profile juddwire.com | |
| 06 | Marine Tech Wire and Cable, Inc. | NEMA profile marinetechwire.com | |
| 07 | Marmon Defense, LLC | NEMA profile marmon-ad.com | |
| 08 | The Monroe Cable Company, Inc. | NEMA profile monroecableusa.com | |
| 09 | Nexans | NEMA profile nexans.ca | |
| 10 | The Okonite Company | NEMA profile okonite.com | |
| 11 | Prysmian Group | NEMA profile prysmiangroup.com | |
| 12 | Quirk Wire Company, Inc. | NEMA profile quirkwire.com | |
| 13 | Radix Wire & Cable, LLC | NEMA profile radix-wire.com | |
| 14 | RSCC Wire & Cable LLC | NEMA profile r-scc.com | |
| 15 | SEA Wire and Cable, Inc. | NEMA profile sea-wire.com | |
| 16 | Southwire Company, LLC | NEMA profile southwire.com | |
| 17 | Specialty Cable Corporation | NEMA profile specialtycable.com | |
| 18 | TE Connectivity | NEMA profile te.com | |
| 19 | Virginia Insulated Products, Inc. | NEMA profile vipwire.com | |
| 20 | W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. | NEMA profile gore.com | |
| 21 | WireMasters, Inc. | NEMA profile wiremasters.net |
Read this before using the list
A place on this sheet is not a qualification. For wire bought against a military or aerospace specification, the only list that counts is the qualified products list for that specification, kept by the government activity responsible for it. How to read and search those lists.
What the section covers
NEMA describes this group as developing requirements for wire and cable used in power and communication, including aerospace, military, shipboard and transit applications. In practice that is four overlapping markets.
| Market | Typical construction | Documents a drawing cites |
|---|---|---|
| Hookup wire | Plated copper under PTFE, FEP or ETFE | NEMA HP 3 and HP 4; MIL-DTL-16878; UL appliance wiring material styles |
| Aircraft and space | Thin-wall fluoropolymer or polyimide composite, by weight | SAE AS22759; NEMA WC 27500 for multi-conductor cable |
| Shipboard | Low-smoke, halogen-free, watertight constructions | MIL-DTL-24643, MIL-DTL-24640 |
| Transit and rail | Cross-linked, low-smoke insulation on flexible conductors | The car builder’s specification, with smoke and flame limits from NFPA 130 |
Several of these documents have changed custodian. MIL-W-22759 became SAE AS22759, and the cable specification once called MIL-C-27500 now has a NEMA counterpart, WC 27500. An old number on a drawing is not automatically wrong, but it is ambiguous. Cite the current document and its revision, or ask the maker which one its product was qualified to.
Why few mills make it
Fluoropolymers melt at temperatures that destroy ordinary extrusion tooling, and PTFE does not melt-process at all: it is paste-extruded or tape-wrapped and then sintered. Thin-wall aerospace insulation is often cross-linked by electron beam, which means owning or renting an accelerator. Conductors are plated with tin, silver or nickel according to the temperature rating. Each step is capital-heavy and slow, and each is audited by the customers who depend on it. The mills that do this work tend to do little else.
Checking a high-performance wire maker
- Start from the specification, not the company. Find the qualified products list for the document on your drawing and see which plants are on it for the exact slash sheet and size.
- Ask for the qualification reference and the plant. Qualification belongs to a product made at a named plant. A company with several sites is not qualified at all of them.
- Expect a certified test report with every lot. Conductor resistance, dimensions, insulation tests and the spark test, tied to a lot number that also appears on the reel.
- Read the wire. Aerospace wire is marked along its length with the part number and the maker’s identity. If what is printed does not match the certificate, stop.
- Know who sold it to you. Much of this wire reaches buyers through distributors that cut, stripe and re-reel it. That is normal, and it makes the paper trail back to the mill the thing to check.
Once the wire is chosen, building it into a harness is a separate sourcing problem with its own guide: choosing a cable assembly manufacturer.