Jump to content
Second Skin Audio

subwoofer box terminals


ron

Recommended Posts

One question these type of topics always make me think of, how would people know if what they were using was hurting performance? I know a lot of folks have just used steel bolts, but steel really isn't a very good conductor. If the steel was adding enough resistance to degrade performance, but not enough to get really hot, I wonder if people would even notice, you just wouldn't be getting the output you could be without the electrical bottleneck of the steel bolts.

"Nothing prevents people from knowing the truth more than the belief they already know it."
"Making bass is easy, making music is the hard part."

Builds:

U7qkMTL.jpg  LgPgE9w.jpg  Od2G3u1.jpg  xMyLoO1.jpg  9pAlXUK.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mean Tony D'amore and Tony Candela proved that steel is fine for a ground, as well as a chassis of a vehicle while using a rf 2500bdcp iirc.

So do you think that steel used in a less critical environment that is passing along mid to high ac voltage and fairly low amperage would be much more hindered compared to steel passing along low dc voltage with high amperage.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mean Tony D'amore and Tony Candela proved that steel is fine for a ground, as well as a chassis of a vehicle while using a rf 2500bdcp iirc.

So do you think that steel used in a less critical environment that is passing along mid to high ac voltage and fairly low amperage would be much more hindered compared to steel passing along low dc voltage with high amperage.

Well obviously it depends on how much material is being used and how much amperage needs to be carried. With a steel chassis there is a LOT of material there to carry the current.

Assuming you are pushing 2000 watts to a 1 ohm sub, thats about 45 amps of current. A 1/4" bolt has about the same circular area as 4 gauge wire, so that's pretty big. 4 gauge aluminum wire is good for roughly 75 amps, but aluminum is 28 times better at conducting electricity than stainless steel is (stainless steel is a lot worse than carbon steel, FYI). So I'm not an electrical engineer, but I at least think its possible that using stainless steel bolts could hurt performance. If there was someone hear who is an electrical engineer and to do the math and give us a definitive answer, that be cool, but until that happens I'm going to error on the side of caution and stick with my aluminum bolts.

"Nothing prevents people from knowing the truth more than the belief they already know it."
"Making bass is easy, making music is the hard part."

Builds:

U7qkMTL.jpg  LgPgE9w.jpg  Od2G3u1.jpg  xMyLoO1.jpg  9pAlXUK.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't measured anything, but I think in my case with a 1/3" galvanized bolt for each terminal (four total) and around 1100-1300 watts max clamped, I don't think they will hurt that bad. In another case with a "little" more power for a single zv4 we used four 2/5" brass bolts (allthread actually) with copper nuts and washers. 10k amp @ 1 ohm, clamping around 5k at tuning (because of impedance rise).

My point is that even with less conducting materials, you can still achieve good results if you go big enough. Overkill never hurts.
And also we should keep in mind that the terminals are not that long, so your comparison with the 4 gauge wire isn't that appropriate in this case imo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Plus with amplifier output being A/C the skin affect is a concern too, to what amount I have no clue though.

Skin effect isn't a factor at the low frequencies we are putting to subs. AFAIK.

"Nothing prevents people from knowing the truth more than the belief they already know it."
"Making bass is easy, making music is the hard part."

Builds:

U7qkMTL.jpg  LgPgE9w.jpg  Od2G3u1.jpg  xMyLoO1.jpg  9pAlXUK.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Who's Online   0 Members, 0 Anonymous, 911 Guests (See full list)

    • There are no registered users currently online
×
×
  • Create New...