Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

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Hambone
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Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Hambone » Sat Nov 18, 2017 11:03 pm

I bought a used 12" Alnico Gold for my Egnater Tweaker cabinet and AD30 head. I went to install it and noticed that it has weird hook shaped wire connectors, instead of tabs. I'm wondering if I need to cut the wires and solder them to these, or can I just hook the clips to the hooks like in the photo?

hooks: https://photos.app.goo.gl/B0peO7e5mwMxArXQ2

clips: https://photos.app.goo.gl/PoSkQ75PzeK2zuMM2

Jondog
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Jondog » Sat Nov 18, 2017 11:19 pm

Those are solder style
Image

Hambone
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Hambone » Sat Nov 18, 2017 11:25 pm

So the clips won't work?

Jondog
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Jondog » Sat Nov 18, 2017 11:49 pm

Not designed to. They’ll work if they hold, but I wouldn’t do it.
Image

Rlw59
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Rlw59 » Sun Nov 19, 2017 3:20 am

Common, modern spade connectors are designed to stay connected- - but even so they sometimes vibrate loose.

The old style hooks aren't designed for spade connectors, and there's a very high likelihood the connectors will vibrate loose.

If you're running a single speaker and it gets disconnected, that's the worst-case impedance mismatch you can have. Possibly causing expensive damage to your amp.

Those old-style hooks are super easy to solder. Even if you've never soldered, they're a great first project.

Strip 1/4~3/8" of the insulation off the wire. Tin the bare end. Poke the tip of the bare end into the eyelet under the hook. Pivot the wire and swing it into the hook. It'll lock into place and you can let go. Press the tip of the soldering iron against the hook and wire, then touch the solder to the intersection of the hook, wire, and tip.

For a lot of solder joints, you kind of need 3 hands because the wire tries to move around while you're soldering. Those hook terminals are a brilliantly simple design.

Hambone
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Hambone » Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:31 am

Well, I've been meaning to buy a soldering kit, so I guess this is the kick in the ass I need.

burnsy
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by burnsy » Sun Nov 19, 2017 12:46 pm

If you've not done much soldering before, lay something like a rag underneath the connectors where you are working. If you should overdo it with the solder, it will prevent any bits that might fall off landing on the cone.

Hambone
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Hambone » Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:25 pm

When you say pivot the wire, do you mean fold it back in on itself when it's through the hole in the hook? That's what I was thinking to get it to stay on while I'm soldering it.

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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Rlw59 » Sun Nov 19, 2017 7:59 pm

Dang, I can't find a video tutorial or even a good pic of how it should look when done. And from text descriptions, apparently many people do wrap the wire around the hook.

But wrapping just makes it more difficult, and harder to remove.

When you tin the stranded wire (coat it in solder) it'll be very stiff, like a thick solid wire. Poke just the tip of the wire into the eyelet hole next to the hook. Push on the insulated part of the wire to bring the bare part down to the level of the hook's opening. Swing, rotate, pull sideways to bring the wire into the hook. Let go. The wire will pop up into the hook.

So now the tip of the wire is in the eyelet hole, sticking out at an angle toward the hook, with the wire trapped in the hook pressing itself up into the hook.

At this point you have a stable mechanical connection. If you don't yank on the wire you could plug the speaker into the amp.

Solder only the hook and wire, no solder at the eyelet hole.

Since this is a used speaker there may be a blob of old solder on the hook, partially filling the hook. Clean the excess off before putting the wire in place.

Rlw59
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Rlw59 » Sun Nov 19, 2017 8:44 pm

Verbal description may be bafflingly unclear.

If you decide to just wrap the wire around the hook, do not tin it first. It'll be way too stiff.

Hambone
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Hambone » Sun Nov 19, 2017 8:59 pm

Yeah, I might just take it to someone who knows what they're doing. I can't afford to do this incorrectly. I wish I had known that it didn't have tab connectors when I bought it.

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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Rlw59 » Sun Nov 19, 2017 10:49 pm

While Googling for pics/tutorials, I discovered that new Alnico Golds & Blues now come with modern spade terminals. Found some comments from Celestion that they were getting too many complaints about the solder hooks.

In fact, one official Celestion recommendation was to just wrap the wire around the hook. And I saw lots of pics of old Marshall cabs where it looked like that was how they did it.

Since you're not in a huge hurry, I'd suggest leaving your stock speaker cable intact. Don't clip off the spade plugs, just get some wire and a 1/4" jack and make a new one. If someday you want to switch out speakers you won't have to mess around.

Hambone
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Hambone » Sun Nov 19, 2017 11:00 pm

Yeah, this one is ten years old. I saw some of those threads about the complaints. I went and bought a little 4.5 watt battery powered soldering iron. I'm going to give it a shot. If I screw it up, I know a speaker guy that could fix it for me in a few minutes. I was going to AB this with another 1x12. If I did screw it up and it's not connected properly, will the amp get blown by only having one 16 ohm speaker connected to the 8 ohm output?

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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Rlw59 » Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:17 am

Most amps will survive that mismatch, especially if you don't crank the amp all the way up.

This forum doesn't like to encourage mismatches though.

But you can check if you have a good connection without hooking it up to an amp. Guessing you don't have a multimeter, but a 9V battery will do.

Plug a cable into your cab. Take the plug at the other end of the cable and put its tip to one battery terminal and the barrel to the other terminal. You should hear a loud pop from the speaker.

Don't leave the plug and battery in contact too long. Just hear the pop and take the plug off the battery. DC can burn out a voice coil (it takes a while but hard to predict how long -- the pop test isn't dangerous to the speaker).

You can also verify polarity with the pop test. Plug tip to battery's positive terminal should make the speaker cone pop out/forward. If you have the connections reversed tip to + will suck the cone in/back.

Hambone
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Re: Celestion Alnico Gold Wire Connectors

Post by Hambone » Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:29 am

I got one side soldered, and I just wrapped the other side because the hook was bent and I couldn't get in there with the iron. I plugged it in and it seems fine. I'll take it to a speaker shop soon and have them fix it up proper. Thanks for the advice!

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