0 AWG Lug nuts...copper? Aluminum? Gold plated? Silver Plated?

[monkeyleg]

I've always wondered if it makes a difference in what material the lug connectors for wire are made out of? Anybody do any tests or have any knowledge of what is best/ pretty good/ avoid? I bough a bunch of silver satin matte plated and I'm wondering if I should visit darvex for some proper 100% brass 24K gold plated?

Edited September 2, 2010 by monkeyleg

[monkeyleg]

Lugnuts? Do you mean lugs? Like large ring terminals that go on the end of wire to attach it to something? Silver is the best conductor. Copper is more than enough... As far as I know, you arent gonna find 24K gold plated anywhere...

Yes the connectors for wire. Darvex has stinger lugs that are 100% brass and coated with 24k gold. So does it make a difference in the material of the lug if in the end it is coated with gold/copper/silver? Could I have steel lugs coated with silver and no difference?

[Neel]

Use welding cable lugs, nice solid copper lugs is all you need, make sure you solder them. There is no need to waste money on car audio brand lugs, basically more money and inferior product (what else is new?)

[monkeyleg]

I am apprehensive about using just copper because of the oxidation. I want a maintenance free product. I started this topic to see how the flow of electricity actually varies when presented with different metals. I know the most efficient conductors are gold, silver, copper. But these are only used for a coating. Does electricity just flow through the coating of the lug? i.e the lug can be made of iron or any cheap metal and be coated with silver and it's good to go?

[Neel]

Copper bus bars are used in industrial applications all the time without issue, a good amount of spl/sq competitors including myself have used copper bus bars and copper terminals in their cars for years. Lets be honest here, there is nothing in car stereo that requires you to get down to the efficiency of the conductors you are using (as long as we are talking about respectable conductors,not copper clad junk). Oh and don't forget that copper has less resistance then gold when looking at the gold plated connectors! The wiring in car stereo is extremely simple even in huge SPL cars like Meade's Tahoe, the only calculations needed to wire the car correctly can be done by any high school kid that has taken a intro to physics class.

Here is an excerpt from an articles that Stephen Mantz wrote a while back that I think summarizes the difference's in materials very simply.

Material Resistance in Ohms/metre

Silver 0.003068

Copper 0.003246

Gold 0.003705

Aluminum 0.00533

Brass 0.013

Iron 0.0188

Platinum 0.0188

Lead 0.0412

"The table shows that silver and copper are so close to each other that the difference is negligible but the cost of silver is a lot higher than copper. In a car system the longest speaker cable length is maybe 5 metres. So if we use #10 copper wire the resistance is 0.03246 ohms per leg for a total resistance of 0.0649 ohms. Let as assume we are using a 500 watt amplifier to drive a 4 ohm speaker. The RMS current is 11.18 amps and the peak is 15.8 amps. Using Ohm’s Law the volt drop over the length of this cable is 0.0649 x 11.18 = 0.71552 volts RMS or 1.02 volts peak. Assuming the amplifier was playing at maximum power (an impossibility of course since we cannot average 500 watts from a 500 watt amplifier but let us be ridiculous and say we can) then the volt drop of about 1 volt as compared to 44.72v (500w with 4 ohms) is a drop of 13 watts or 1.22dB. Of course this does not occur in practice and a realistic number due to a crest factor of 10dB is an average of 50 watts per channel.

The RMS current is 3.5 amps and peak is 5 amps. So the volt drop is 5 x 0.0649 = 0.32 volts. Not a number to get excited about!"

Here is the original article

http://www.zedaudiocorp.com/Technical/Cables.htm

[CortezDTV]

from what i have heard, you want to specifically stick to one kind of metal if you can because the switch between silver and copper and gold and aluminum, creats electro negativity, creating a magnetic field, so i've been told by my "sound genesis" to try to stick to one kind of wire, when he explained it it made perfect sence, but for the most part silver is the best, (besides gold because of the cost) but no one makes silver wire that would be to pricy, so i would get copper rings if its possiable

but just my 2 cents, many of these people know much more than me

[monkeyleg]

Wow, excellent. Everything I needed to know and I knew this was the place to go. Huge relief off my mind, efficiency is my number one priority so it's good to know I don't have to worry about it. Thanks guys

[Neel]

Not a whole lot in car stereo that can't be explained with some simple physics!

[monkeyleg]

I really appreciate your efforts man, it cleared up alot and I did find it very interesting, and very surprised by platinum not being superior to copper and silver. I see alot of companies, ex. Rockford, promoting platinum plated RCA's, fuse holders, and connectors. But I also realise that the effect isn't drastic enough so I won't lean towards products like that in the future. Sometimes I SMD it instead of googling

[Ji553r]

for the best conductivity all you need is lead....then cool it down to about -400 degreesF. superconductors ftw be sure to post pics lol