aluminum is a nice enough metal but it's a pain to work with

can't solder to it worth crap without special solder and really aggressive flux, can't weld it without tons of practice
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oh and it makes terrible crimped connections because you can't break through the oxide very well

and it's really hard to wirebond to
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but it's cheap, relatively strong (even stronger with small amounts of copper and other metals in it--most stuff sold as aluminum is actually an alloy), lightweight, has excellent thermal and electrical conductivity (not as good as copper but still really good, and cheaper)

it's just a pain to work with
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