Topic: Crimping 4 gauge wire

[chemtek]

So I used a vice to crimp ring terminals on to my 4 gauge wire while upgrading battery pos to alternator, battery neg to chassis, and engine block to chassis wires due to headlights dimming.  known as "the big three" upgrade.
I'm not happy with how flat the ring terminal is in order to connect wire and think I need to re-do the ends to get a better connection.

Any one know of a way to do this other then spending more money on more tools that I'll likely not use again.

[The Goat]

Anything other than using the proper crimping tool is going to be a little gheto, but in a bind I have used a hammer and punch on the center to get it to fold then crimp tight (I normally just use linesmans pliers) if you just flatten the crimp it is not going to hold, it need to fold to get properly tight.

[NiceEqualLengths]

solder

[Canuckrz]

solder

This^

When I did my big 3 upgrade on my supra I think I used 2 gauge wire or so. I used a small propane torch to heat up the connection point as it takes literally forever for a soldering iron to head up that much metal. Aim the flame at the base of the connector, generally by the time the coating on the wire starts to melt right where you stripped the wire it should be hot enough for the solder to take. Then slide on your shrink tube and seal the thing.

The cheapest place I use to be able to find large gauge wire was at marine supply stores, they also have the nice marine grade corrosion resistant cables which is nice to use inside an engine bay.

This might work for a crimper for you http://www.princessauto.com/pal/Brushes-magnets-tools/Welding-Cable-Lug-Crimper/8509879.p

[Unholysavage]

For smaller power wire I always fold the connection with a hammer and punch/chisel. My best connections on my car stereos were hammer-on terminals, but that's a different league of power wire. If you're concerned, solder works well.
Heatshrink it and the ugly factor will drop, along with sealing the joint from oxidation.

[NiceEqualLengths]

For smaller power wire I always fold the connection with a hammer and punch/chisel. My best connections on my car stereos were hammer-on terminals, but that's a different league of power wire. If you're concerned, solder works well.
Heatshrink it and the ugly factor will drop, along with sealing the joint from oxidation.

I heatshrink every connection. Cleans everything up. It's wonderful stuff.

[RockThePylon]

I heatshrink every connection. Cleans everything up. It's wonderful stuff.

For extra points, get the heatshrink with that hotglue stuff inside. Seals up tighter than a virgin on grad night.

[Unholysavage]

That PA crimper works well if you can find it in stock. 

Having spent years playing with SPL goodies, the cheapest place we've found for big power wire in Calgary is princess auto welding cable. I've spent less for PA 4/0 than I've spent on 4ga at Autotemp, and 1/0 and smaller always seems to be in stock. Be warned that most welding cable has lower strand count, and thicker jackets, so it doesn't flex as well as the high strand count" audio" wire. And everything is black, if that matters. But it does the job just as well.
PA also has dirt cheap copper terminals, far cheaper than any audio shop.

[chemtek]

When I used the vice, I did it at different angles and kind of bent the edges over.  It's tight and definitely is not going to pull out but I'm worried about maybe damage to the strands inside flattened terminal.  And I for sure am a fan of heat shrink and solder. 

Here's the tool I found on ebay that is relatively cheaper then other options I've seen out there.  I guess it would be similar to the hammer and punch method.  Costs around 45 bucks to my door and is good for 1/0 - 8 gauge wire.  I might just bite the bullet and order it.  My lights are still dimming after my upgrade and I'm hoping I do not need a bigger alternator to supply my 2 amps.




 

[NiceEqualLengths]

Do HIDs and led lights. Never had a dimming problem after that and I was pushing 2000W

[Canuckrz]

Looks literally identical to the Princess Auto one I posted, though with maybe a little bit cleaner casting.



I'd at least check the local princess auto's first for it, the ebay one isn't a bad price but seriously 22.50 for shipping? Fudge that.

[chemtek]

Looks literally identical to the Princess Auto one I posted, though with maybe a little bit cleaner casting.



I'd at least check the local princess auto's first for it, the ebay one isn't a bad price but seriously 22.50 for shipping? Fudge that.

Cool. I'll check it out for sure. Tnx

[Unholysavage]

Do HIDs and led lights. Never had a dimming problem after that and I was pushing 2000W

Not 2000w RMS you weren't.
Not with our tiny alternators. Or our baby batteries.
Maybe you have a 2000w RMS amp, but the real world will never give you that output on music, no matter how hard you look at the factory clamp sheet. Voltage drop and impedance rise make sure of that, and music will only draw a fraction of test tones (with which an amp is tested with from factory). There is no 2kw amp on earth that's efficient enough to not pull far more current than our baby 90A alternators are capable of if you could get full power out of them.
For instance, my American Bass VFL 150.1s are true 2kw amps. Loaded down to 0.35 ohms each, I managed to pull a true 4200wRMS out of a pair (impedance rose to just over 1 ohm) when we clamped them at a DBDrag comp. IIRC, both amps pulled well over 200A each. Real world results with pretty efficient class D amps. No way in hell would I bolt one of them into my car, with our weak electrical, and expect to be able to turn it up and not eventually melt the amp or clip a sub to death.
Larger cable helps reduce voltage drop from front to back (slightly), but its not a fix. Always use cable that's more than capable of handling the current draw. Nobody wants a fire.
Lights dimming are clear indications that youre pulling enough current to max out your alt and drop voltage below the resting voltage of your battery. If you want to kill equipment, you're on the right path.

Capacitors are gigantic wastes of money. Larger batteries help reduce the voltage drop (below ~12.5v anyway), but that's only really helpful with the car off. The only true fixes are either turn down the volume knob, or look for a HO alternator. If you do the alt, a battery (or two) should be part of the same upgrade path.
My $0.99

[chemtek]

Not 2000w RMS you weren't.
Not with our tiny alternators. Or our baby batteries.
Maybe you have a 2000w RMS amp, but the real world will never give you that output on music, no matter how hard you look at the factory clamp sheet. Voltage drop and impedance rise make sure of that, and music will only draw a fraction of test tones (with which an amp is tested with from factory). There is no 2kw amp on earth that's efficient enough to not pull far more current than our baby 90A alternators are capable of if you could get full power out of them.
For instance, my American Bass VFL 150.1s are true 2kw amps. Loaded down to 0.35 ohms each, I managed to pull a true 4200wRMS out of a pair (impedance rose to just over 1 ohm) when we clamped them at a DBDrag comp. IIRC, both amps pulled well over 200A each. Real world results with pretty efficient class D amps. No way in hell would I bolt one of them into my car, with our weak electrical, and expect to be able to turn it up and not eventually melt the amp or clip a sub to death.
Larger cable helps reduce voltage drop from front to back (slightly), but its not a fix. Always use cable that's more than capable of handling the current draw. Nobody wants a fire.
Lights dimming are clear indications that youre pulling enough current to max out your alt and drop voltage below the resting voltage of your battery. If you want to kill equipment, you're on the right path.

Capacitors are gigantic wastes of money. Larger batteries help reduce the voltage drop (below ~12.5v anyway), but that's only really helpful with the car off. The only true fixes are either turn down the volume knob, or look for a HO alternator. If you do the alt, a battery (or two) should be part of the same upgrade path.
My $0.99

For my rockford T12-2ohm dvc sub,  im running a Rockford P1000bd amp. I only have 1 sub so I didn't think I would be causing this much stress on my system.  I do agree that caps are useless and that I most likely will need a HO alternator. I'm just working through it going step by step. Maybe your right, and I'll just need to turn down the gain or keep volume down.

[Unholysavage]

the number of subs isn't the defining factor on power output, it's the load that those subs are wired to at the amplifier that controls power output/current draw.

your sub has dual 2 ohm VCs, which (depending on how you wired it) could be connected at either 4 ohms or 1 ohm. 4 ohms shouldn't draw enough current to drop voltage/dim if the gains are set properly.
if you're having dimming, it's likely that your voicecoils are wired in parallel (1 ohm load).
1 ohm is the lowest that amp is rated to handle (daily), where RF states it can make its full 1kw+. not sure what that amp would draw for current, but probably closing in on the 130-150A range during peaks if I were to guess.

it's a perfect combo, provided the electrical is up to the task and the gains are properly set to avoid clipping.
those RF BDs were stout amps, but I'd turn things down a bit to keep from frying it.

[chemtek]

the number of subs isn't the defining factor on power output, it's the load that those subs are wired to at the amplifier that controls power output/current draw.

your sub has dual 2 ohm VCs, which (depending on how you wired it) could be connected at either 4 ohms or 1 ohm. 4 ohms shouldn't draw enough current to drop voltage/dim if the gains are set properly.
if you're having dimming, it's likely that your voicecoils are wired in parallel (1 ohm load).
1 ohm is the lowest that amp is rated to handle (daily), where RF states it can make its full 1kw+. not sure what that amp would draw for current, but probably closing in on the 130-150A range during peaks if I were to guess.

it's a perfect combo, provided the electrical is up to the task and the gains are properly set to avoid clipping.
those RF BDs were stout amps, but I'd turn things down a bit to keep from frying it.

Amp is wired to a 1 ohm load and I have no clipping. Amp has lights to let me know when either the signal is clipping or the speaker is clipping. I used a multimeter and a 60hz sin wave tone to set output at around 28.28 volts which should be around 800 watts to the sub. But then again I should double check this as something tells me I turned it up a bit after the fact. Maybe that is my problem.

Anyways I picked up the Princess Auto crimper today and will re-do and make all my 4 gauge (amp included) connections pretty. I do have a decent enough stereo knowledge to do all my own work, which I have

Tnx for all the help and ideas to think about.

[Canuckrz]

LMK what your results are with the crimper. Did they have several in stock?

[chemtek]

Southside location had a bunch. Not sure when I'll do it. Looking outside, I guess my next project is swapping out to winter tires on my 2008wrx and 1996 STI. Lol