Have you thought about just tinning the exposed wire with solder? Because it can still turn black/corrode if it's attached to banana plugs or other connectors.

I usually use spade terminals on amps that allow it, but a lot of amps these days just have set screw connections for bare wire. Not a whole lot of options if that's the case.

 

Tinned wire on amps. No naners on speakers, just screw them down, neners can work loose. IF there is a crimp connector used it is not crimped but soldered. I don't believe in crimp connectors at all.

 

solder everything you can

 

Not me. I love crimp connectors. Invest in a good crimper and it's every bit as reliable as a soldered connection, and you don't have to worry about cold solder joints. It also has built-in strain relief if you crimp the plastic down too. The only place where crimping becomes iffy is with very thin wires.

 

My good crimper says Weller on it, the other says Pace

Some people have good luck, some don't. I don't mind well designed crimps like on Elco/EDAC connectors or specitaly crimps but then you have to buy a different set of farking dies for like a hundred bucks for your crimpers that already cost you 2 hundred.

I have never, ever had a cold solder joint on a connector, but plenty on circuit boards and never had one on there after I re-soldered it.

Chad

 

I'm with MarkZ. I used to solder almost everything, but since investing in a good ratcheting crimper, I crimp almost all my connections. Using the proper dies for the application makes a big difference. Plus it's nice not having to deal with a hot iron when working within the confines of a vehicle.

From an interesting thread over at the12volt:

hotwire77 wrote:
a crimped connection is never as reliable as a clean solder joint

dpaton wrote:
That's not really true. There's a reason that the military uses crimped terminations for nearly all of the connections in the F-16. Properly done, a crimp forms a cold weld, where the pressure of the crimp actually forces a very small, but extremely important layer of each metal to turn into an alloy of the two metals. Good crimps are gas-tight, which means that the wire will never ever oxidize in the crimp. Finally, in a good crimp, no solder wicks up into the wire and makes it more brittle. That's also why crimps are preferred for the multipin connectors that touring sound companies use. The're much more reliable when used in connections that take a hard beating.

That said, making perfect crimps takes the right tool, the right jig, the right crimp connector, and a buttload of experience (for a high yield anyway). I've done some mil-spec crimping and it's a completely different animal from the ultra-crappy red-blue-yellow crimps and that stupid GB tool you get at your local Home Depot/Lowes. It requires a connector sized almost exactly to the wire used (or vice versa), a crimp tool designed for that exact connector, and able to provide the proper amount of compression in the right places (ie, a die matched to the connector AND the wire size) and a jig to hold the connector, wire, and crimp tool in the proper relationship to each other. Machines do it best, because they do it the most reliably. It's pretty easy to make one good crimp, but you usually have to do a dozen or two to get that one good one.

Soldering is widely accepted as better because it is supremely easier and is successful much more often in the hands of beginners and professionals alike. That little blob of liquid Sn/Pb covers a multitude of sins.

-dave

http://www.the12volt.net/installbay/forum_posts.asp?TID=36483&PN=16&TPN=2

 

^^^ thats pretty interesting