Killed my first Tweeter today!! What to do?

[bobhowell]

I am building Zaph's Hi Vi/ Vifa 5. No more tweeters available( D27SG-05), but Madisound will sell me a similar model with the same voice coil for 60% of retail. I pull out the voice coil and use it as replacement. The rest of the tweeter is a paper weight. Sounds fair. They stock the voice coil alone but are out now. Same voice coil in a series of tweeters.

This happened on my 8th speaker build. The contact pulled loose as I soldered the connection. Got it too hot. So, what do others use to avoid this? Quick connect clamped on?? I have heard others mentioned this problem so I know it is common.

The wire is the size of a hair strand and Larry at Madisound said I would never resolder it. Too small. I believe him. Cautionary tale for others.

So, do you recommend going to quick connects for tweeter?

Thanks,

Bob

[Mike B]

Avoid large gauge wire (you don't need it for tweeters) and solder quick.

[Hank]

I've built lots of speakers using "quick connects" that never had contact issues nor loosened to the best of my knowledge. I'll be the first to say I love a good soldered connection, but after seeing a newbie ruin his Focal tweeter by overheating one of the tabs and melting the frog-hair fine wire, I've used quick connects since then. Be sure to carefully close them down a bit along the entire length of both sides of the moving contact, so that you get lots of very firm contact area. Another thing I do is to brush a very thin film of Caig gold onto the driver tabs for permanent corrosion protection.

[bobhowell]

I have been using $9-28-42. tweeters and now I am glad I learned on low- mid price models. I have never priced a Focal but I see I dodged a bullet.

[jquin]

I'm suprised you cant solder it. I have access to some fairly high end soldering stuff at work but even reasonably priced soldering stuff should do it. Buy some liquid flux in a bottle and a pair of tweezers and have a go. Of cause if you have broken the fine wire already then that could be an issue.

[jkrutke]

I never solder drivers myself. I use quick connects. I occasionally squeeze them closed or pry them open a bit to get the right amount compression on the terminal. I also take a scratch awl and tap out the directional tab that most have - then I can remove it without the tab grabbing the hole on the terminal. (not sure if you guys know what I'm talking about here)

Also, being obsessive, most of my quick connects are soldered after being crimped, and then I use color coded heat shrink tubing over the crimp to designate positive or negative.

[Hank]

Also, being obsessive, most of my quick connects are soldered after being crimped

I was with you until you divulged soldering your quick connects. :E
Kudos to your honesty! Actually, I've done that (I'm at the confession booth here), BUT only on inexpensive components and a couple of low end drivers). Whew, I feel better now.
Okay, to get technical, A high compression force electrical connection is techinally called "gas-tight", and is considered as good as a soldered connection. BUT, it requires fairly high psi. Our plant used to wire-wrap backplanes on our telephonic diagnostic equipment and the wire-wrap passed Ma Bell's specs.
Pardon my rambling - point is, I'm normally a soldering fan, but I hate to chance melting a tweet's ultra-fine VC wire or messing with the tinsel leads of a woof when I know that a quality quick connect at high connect pressure does the job.

[Carl V]

ditto to the crimp on connectors & the shrink wrap.
I've soldered my share so far luckily.....

I've also done the Northcreek "eye connector" with
brass bolt technique for breadboarding XO..lotsa pressure
for a cold weld.

I've been a geek & did some blind A/B comparisons.
I've never been able to discern the differences at significant
confidence levels. ymmv

[Dennis H]

I was with you until you divulged soldering your quick connects.

I think he means soldering it to the wire rather than soldering it to the driver.

Okay, to get technical, A high compression force electrical connection is techinally called "gas-tight", and is considered as good as a soldered connection. BUT, it requires fairly high psi.

The typical crimping pliers don't (and can't when you look at the shape) come close to that kind of connection between the wire and the connector, so soldering the wire to the connector is a good thing.

[Johnloudb]

:agree:
I always solder quick connects to the wire. Crimping just doesn't hold the wire that good, most of the time.

[jquin]

:agree:
I always solder quick connects to the wire. Crimping just doesn't hold the wire that good, most of the time.

It's not my forte but the technicians where I work swear by crimps, as long as they are the proper crimping tool. Some of those tools are soo expensive that solder is a far better solution for the amature.

[---k---]

I never solder drivers myself. I use quick connects.

John,

That is very comforting to know. I also killed a tweeter by soldering and now use quick connects, but there is a part of me that wants to believe the online folklore that cheep quick connects are bad and I need "audiophile connectors".

This might be a good thing to add to your design mantras. I think it would make a lot of people sleep better at night.

[impala454]

This may be obvious, but when I have to solder a wire quickly, I pre-solder the wire end liberally, let it cool, then make the solder connection to the delicate part.

[Dave Bullet]

Soldering the wire to the crimp end also removes another point of oxidation. I cannot tell any sonic differences between soldered vs. crimp attached drivers. I solder woofers because you have enough room for a heat sink behind plus the voice coil wire is heavier duty. Also saves a few cents for quick connects. I always use quick connects for tweeters for the reasons the OP mentioned.

David.

[Ray Collins]

John,
You are showing screws securing the laminate inductors to the board in your crossover picture; are these stainless steel or did you use ferrous screws and a smaller value inductor to compensate for the increase in value they cause? I used stainless steel to secure mine when I built these crossovers--do I need to re-do?

Ray

[ThomasW]

did you use ferrous screws and a smaller value inductor to compensate for the increase in value they cause? I used stainless steel to secure mine when I built these crossovers--

Doesn't matter it they're stainless or zinc plated steel. No you don't need to make any adjustments for them impacting the value of the inductor.

[jkrutke]

Doesn't matter it they're stainless or zinc plated steel. No you don't need to make any adjustments for them impacting the value of the inductor.

Well, it does change the inductance a small amount, but it's a judgment call if the amount of change is enough to care about. In a lot of cases, I'd agree that it's not going to make an audible difference. In the picture I showed however (slightly modified SR71 crossover) I did indeed use a 3.0 mH instead of a 3.3 because of the screws.

If you guys want a cool trick to try, If I don't have the value inductor I need in stock, I often modify the values of air cores with various length screws to raise it to where I need. The effect is great when used on air cores.

edit: I thought I better add that the effect on Sledgehammer steel laminates is predictable, but the effect on air coils is not. If you're going to mod air coils with screws, you have to be able to measure it. Also, you can somewhat tweak the value by screwing further out of the core into the wood base.

[looneybomber]

Wow, I never would have guessed. I've used either quick connects, or bare wire due to the tweeter using binding posts (neopro 5i). I'm glad I've not tried to solder a tweeter yet.

[bobhowell]

Well, I am making 3 of these for l/c/r and I tried for 3 days to get the next one to work but no luck with the tweeter. So I opened it up and found I messed up the contact on it also. So I ruined 2 of 3 tweeters.

I have been looking over the contact and think I must at least try to resolder it. Anybody ever done this?

Thanks

Bob

PS; Anybody got 2 extra voice coils for this or the D27TG35 or 45 tweeter. They are interchangeable.

[dlr]

Soldering the wire to the crimp end also removes another point of oxidation. I cannot tell any sonic differences between soldered vs. crimp attached drivers.
David.

I only use quick connects and do similarly to zaph. This is important for the long term. I always crimp as tightly as possible for good metal/metal contact, then solder only to prevent oxidation. I had problems a few years ago with unsoldered, but tightly crimped quick connects. I've also had purely soldered connections go bad with only slight wire bends. The only reason I found these was that I heard it. I couldn't explain the change in a stereo setup and kept re-checking the entire crossover build. Convinced the configuration was correct, I started testing the connection points. Since then I've never left a crimped connection unsoldered. Shrink wrap is not air-tight. There will still be oxidation over the long term.

Dave

[alias2]

The wire is the size of a hair strand and Larry at Madisound said I would
never resolder it. Too small. I believe him. Cautionary tale for others.

Bob

I have repaired a tweeter with a broken connecting wire by undoing one turn.
(Luckily it was the outside voicecoil connection that was broken.)
The problem is getting the insulation off the wire which needs careful scraping.
After that the tinning / soldering is easy.