terminal soldering??

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

i'm gonna be hooking up my mids and i want to solder the wire to the speaker. so i think it goes, i bare the wire, put a piece of shrink tubing on it, heat up the metal terminal on the speaker, put the wire on it, then melt solder on it, put tube on it, then i'm done? i know this probably isn't right but if you guys could fill me in on how to do it, please do so.

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[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, sounds like you've got it.

You need a heat gun for the heat shrink tubing, though...you can do it with a lighter, but trust me, once you've done it with a heat gun you'll never go back.

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, sounds like you've got it.
You need a heat gun for the heat shrink tubing, though...you can do it with a lighter, but trust me, once you've done it with a heat gun you'll never go back.

i need to buy a heat gun for my deadener anyways. which one of these would i need for 16 ga. wire? http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=73

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Quarter or half inch tubing should work...heat shrink contracts to several times smaller than it was, so it isn't very critical which size you get.

 

[johnecon2001 5,000+ posts]

To make it easier and faster to solder everything.. try a trick called "tinning". Basically, you heat up the first part to be soldered (the terminal) and then coat it real good in solder. Then heat up the wire and do the same thing to it. Then hold the two pieces together and put the iron on them both.. they should both melt and hook together with the best connection there is.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Be careful soldering on a speaker though. Heat the terminal up too much, and it's possible to fry your voice coil if the heat conducted to it exceeds it's thermal power handling.

 

[`pr0digy 10+ year member]

Why not just crimp those quick connect deals to it ? I have them on my wires, that way I can easily slide them off if I need to take the speaker out.

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

Why not just crimp those quick connect deals to it ? I have them on my wires, that way I can easily slide them off if I need to take the speaker out.

i live in the middle of nowhere. no car audio shop in my area, and those metal connecters corroded on me. the gold ones i do have are too small to fit on the speaker. so i either solder, or order terminals off the internet wait for shipping and hope they are the right size.