#RADIO SHACK BANANA PLUG HOW TO#

In the end, however, the difference between a well soldered spade and a well crimped spade is largely academic and you are unlikely to hear a significant difference between the two techniques. If that's the case, either you need to move the equipment so you can make a better connection, use a crimp type spade lug to provide a large contact surface or get someone else to properly do the job and pay for their tools and ability. But without a soldering pot you'll often expose wire further inside the insulation to oxidation, again not a good choice given all the others. Tinning wires is IMO only a second best choice if you know you cannot make a decent connection without strands of wire exposed.

#RADIO SHACK BANANA PLUG HOW TO#

If you do not understand how to make a good bare wire connection or your connectors do not allow such a connection, use crimp type spade lugs. If you do not understand how to achieve a good, clean solder joint, a crimp type connection with the spade is IMO preferrable to soldering globs of junk into the cold soldered connection. Certainly, if you do not know how to make a good solder joint when using 10/14 AWG cable and spade lugs, this is highly undesireable since a good crimp is always preferrable to a bad solder joint. You will have less contact area with the tinned wire which is less desireable. Tinned 14 AWG wire will not compress to make a good large contact area connection as will a spade or bare wire. If you make the connection properly and the connector provides a gas tight connection, you need not concern yourself with oxidation of the connection. You can clean the spade when it becomes oxidized or you can strip back the insulation to find clean copper in the bare wire. The correct tools for either are inexpensive and easy to use. I would favor bare copper or a crimped spade lug in this application. However, you have a choice when it comes to your own connections. Yes, solder is obviously used in the construction of equipment, it is indispensable in that application. You can say, 'To heck with it, it's already screwed up', or you can try to make the best of the situation. If your connectors are the typical gold plated posts, you aleady have brass, nickel and a few other things to contend with beneath the gold plating. The idea here is dissimilar metals are undesirable in a good connection and it's best to have as few materials in the joint as possible. Even with silver content solder the extent of the silver is seldom more than 4% total the rest is made up of lower quality metals. Both are the major components in electrician's solder. Even then, tin is not the best conductor, nor is lead. Without trying to start a riff here, I would suggest 'tinning' your heavy guage bare wire ends is not the best idea unless you can afford a solder pot.

Clean off rosin after cooling by brushing with alcohol cheap vodka is excellent for this. The best procedure to get good flow is to dip the wire end in a can of rosin flux before soldering this ensures good flow throughout. Whatever you do, remember that copper oxidizes rapidly, and so does nearly everything else but gold, so always tin wire ends with solder before making connections. Vandersteen is one of those, so I use Audioquest 1/4' gold-plated spade lugs soldered carefully to eight 12-foot lengths of #10 Alpha stranded hookup wire for my speaker cables not cheap, but excellent. I think that the largest wire they will take is #14, however.Ī lot of cheap banana plugs may not make real good electrical contact over time some speaker manufacturers do not like them, so they put screw terminals on instead of binding posts. To terminate them properly, tin the ends of the wires with solder and then insert and tighten the set screws with an allen wrench. By the way, they are called 'GR' plugs because they were originated many years ago by a company called General Radio that made test equipment.). You need jacks that have that spacing of course. If you get the top quality Pomona Electronics GR plugs (the dual banana plug type) they will work well over time.

Radio shack banana plug