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Crimping or soldering terminals?


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Personally, I have always used solder, where I saturate the stripped cable end in solder, so that the entire bare wire contacts the terminal. This seems to give me an extremely good connection, and I never really thought about other connection methods.

Now, I've been seeing a lot of terminals like these recently; http://store.soundsolutionsaudio.com/products/1-0-awg-copper-lugs-10-pack-w-heat-shrink-sky-high-car-audio.html and they seem to be gaining a lot of popularity. This indicates to me that crimping might have a lower resistance or something. Either that or people are no longer willing to take the time to solder. Can anyone confirm/deny this? Any numbers?

Nah man, it's cuz of the bass.

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I can't speak for conductivity but I think sometimes less is more. I crimp and I know a lot of guys solder but they always just plunge a cold wire into a hot terminal full of solder which is wrong.

So that is my.02

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I can't speak for conductivity but I think sometimes less is more. I crimp and I know a lot of guys solder but they always just plunge a cold wire into a hot terminal full of solder which is wrong.

So that is my.02

Yeah, I was thinking that the plunge method you just described would be the only way to solder that type of terminal, and it seemed kind of sketch. When you crimp, what do you use to do so?

Nah man, it's cuz of the bass.

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I use a hydraulic crimper. Some people can solder large gauge wire well. I can solder well but I'm lazy and a crimper is nice clean and works well.

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ive done both, with those terminals it sucks trying to solder those close ended terminals. I crimped most of mine, but had a friend helping me and he soldered some too. I havent noticed much of a difference, though, i need to get a better crimper for 0 gauge, we had to go old school on those lugs, lol.

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Yeah, soldering takes more time and some more skill to get it to be done correctly. Next time I will be using a hydraulic crimper.

this was my first attempt at soldering 1/0

IMG_5023_zpsc535795e.jpg

and this was my second attempt, luckily I got the hang of it

IMG_5024_zpsafba9d72.jpg

 

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On 10/3/2013 at 10:00 AM, ROLEXrifleman said:

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Hey, that's more or less what my first attempt looked like. I think I'm just gonna stick with what I now then, since it doesn't seem like there's an electrical advantage to crimping. Unless someone has numbers. *nudge nudge* Don't care who I'm nudging as long as they have some numbers lmao.

Nah man, it's cuz of the bass.

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Old school here I solder. Seems to hold better. But crimp has been around along time also.

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I do believe there was a test somewhere. And a properly done solder vs a properly done crimp was almost no difference.

As long as when you cut the lug/terminal in half and it's a solid piece of metal either way, what would you expect? I'd say the same results.

When Snowdrifter sees this I bet he has some more info to add in.

 

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On 10/3/2013 at 10:00 AM, ROLEXrifleman said:

Anyone who says they knew everything they wanted out of life at 19 can go suck a bag of dicks cause they are lying to themselves or brought up in a cult.

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I'm a crimp guy, use a 16 ton hydraulic crimper.

I like crimp lugs better. Much meatier and made from copper. None of that thin stamped brass junk. You can solder them too. The "plunge" method is fine. Just need to make sure the solder has time to wick into the wire a bit and doesn't solidify on the outer surface. Just continue to hit it with a torch for a few seconds and you are fine. PurpleSyrup did a great tutorial video on how to do this. Cut one of his connections open and it looked great.

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