Terminal cups bad?? Do they melt?

[jtomsic 5,000+ posts]

im sure u can make it work some how..if not..go smaller wire..i got 2 runs of 8ga into a wire terminal on my sub tho.

 

[Redlineaudio 10+ year member]

I have seen them melt. We do not use them unless necessary or asked for.

 

[yowhobedat 10+ year member]

Redline, did u see them melt becaus of shorts, or too much current going through them?? Would i have a problem with 1200 watts?

 

[morespl 10+ year member]

I have seen and melted terminal cups on a kicker zx 1500 and a orion 2500d they melt due to improper wire size. They also melt because there plastic if I had a terminal cup on a box I would drill a hole in the terminal cup and run the out of it.Another thing is if they melt the wires touch together and you can smoke your amp remember what can go wrong will go wrong.

 

[Redlineaudio 10+ year member]

had an M1a on the last one that melted, 1k or so. They melt from heat, the heat is from a loose connection and arching or from cheep wire or cheep metal in the cup that has a high resistance. See it all the time in power kits, The Sscosche kit from walmart comes through all the time.

 

[yowhobedat 10+ year member]

see, im assuming i have a cheap terminal cup, because i took my cup off a pre fab box i had. i have rockford 8gauge power cable for my speaker wire. Personally, would yuou use the cup? I can just run the cable through the port?? would that be a better idea, id rather not make another hole in the box, so id like to use the port, but if thats a bad idea, i'll just drill ahole and liquid nail it up

 

[yowhobedat 10+ year member]

also, i dont wanna mess up my amp, thats y id rather be on the safe side and just avoid using the terminal cup i already put in. You think i should drill a hole in the terminal cup? i already covered literally the whole cup in liquid nails lol i wanted to make sure i had no air leaks. What does a melted terminal cup do?? stops the system from working, blow amps, subs, what?

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

do you have some sort of clear silicone, or even just liquid nails? drill a hole in the box just big enough for the wire to slip through then fill in the rest with the silicone, it works fine. alternatively, drilling a hole to drive a bolt through and then attach the speaker wire to the bolt using a ring terminal or something is a good solution to, and actually can allow you to wire the sub different from the outside of the box without even taking out the sub.

 

[yowhobedat 10+ year member]

so if i drill a hole through the box, and use liquid nails to seal it up. i have a question. the sub i have is dual vioce coils. should i run all four connections to the amp, or just connect the sub inside the box, and run 2 cables to the amp?

 

[Canaan 10+ year member]

I see terminal cups show up at the shop melted all the time. Usually from from 'shade tree' installers just wrapping wire around the internal male-spade rather than soldering or at least using a female spade.

I don't even stock terminal cups. Its just another cost that will add up when building boxes.

I just drill a hole in a wall of the box that will JUST BARELY fit the size wire required to support the power to be used.

Run the wire thru and use hot-glue to seal up the hole inside the box around the wire. (hot-glue sets up ALOT faster than silicone)

Then I run the wire directly to the amp's terminals. If the customer MUST be able to remove the box, I just put male and female spades on the wire coming out of the box. Usually leave about 3ft of slack wire coming from the box, and make matching leads from the amp to the box.

 

[yowhobedat 10+ year member]

i wish i woulda knew all this about terminal cups before i put it in lol at least i read about it before i used it, and ran into problems later on. it woulda been so much easier not putting the terminal cup in. should i just liquid nail the whole cup, inside and out, to guarentee no air leaks from it?? lol

 

[yowhobedat 10+ year member]

just to let everyone know, i liquid nailed the ENTIRE terminal cup, inside and out. I doubt any air will be leaking out of there. and im just going to drill a hole in the box, silicone it and call it a day. thanks for the help everyone

 

[Canaan 10+ year member]

I wouldn't recommend using liquid nails for ANY subwoofer box use.

LiquidNails never fully cures. Just read on their site, it offers a rigid yet FLEXABLE bond.

"FLEXABLE bonds" should never be seen as a good thing when building an enclosure. You want your enclosure to be as solid as possible.

You would have been better off pulling the terminal out, cutting a small piece of wood that would cover the hole the terminal cup created. Then use wood glue to bond the new piece of MDF over the old hole and screw it into place.

 

[yowhobedat 10+ year member]

I used elmers wood glue max for all the joints, i used lq nails wood as silicone for the edges. Is that a bad idea?

Yea i guess ill take the cup out then n put a piec of wood in it. Might as well do it right the first time

 

[SPLaudio 5,000+ posts]

if connection is loose or they are cheapys yes they can. for the power ur using ur fine.

for comp or alot of power i like to use 3/8 bolts thru the box and ring terminals. also make ez to change imp at comps for lower imp. use bolts double nut thru the box and wing nuts to hold the 3/8" ring terminals on. for comps run a pair of bolts per coil or per sub to switch imp...