Soldered VS ...everything else

Thanks Geoff

Crimped hard and soldered with enough heat to make the solder suck into the joint. No problems doing it this way for almost 50 years. Set screws have no place on my banana plugs. I use one of those big irons that have enough mass to pretty much instantly heat the plug to the point it needs to be. I've had some bad outcomes with plugs that can't be soldered. It takes a while, but eventually it seems to happen, so I do the right thing and don't have to worry about it.

If I am following here, you are suggesting "tinning/soldering" a section of wire, and then putting that soldered section into a screw terminal and then screwing it down? That appears to be what you are suggesting?

If this is what you are suggesting, then please, No One Do This. This is about the worst thing you can do. Solder is soft, and not only compresses, but flows under pressure. It is virtually a given that you connection will loosen. This is why you never tin wires before putting them into screw terminals, (or why those terminals often seem to loosen for some people).

teo_audio1,249 posts11-22-2018 10:50am
..... If your wire is inexpensive per foot, clean off about 2 inches or so of bare wire strands, then twist them so they are tightly packed and contacting each other, tie one end down and stretch out the other, solder soak that section that has wire to wire strand contact, then cut the excess end off, and have this stretch bit of solder and self-contacted strands (no wider than the original strands/set)....then insert the bulk soldered bit into the connector and screw that down. Just another way of doing it.

Some thoughts:

For electrical contact and reliability, you cannot beat a crimp connection, assuming the crimp connection is done with a proper ratcheting crimper, not the $10-15 crimpers you get from the hardware store. It forms a metal to metal bond and evacuates the contact areas of air preventing oxydation. The crimper has the match the terminal design as well. 


Silver solder, the stuff we use that melts near typical soldering temperatures, is not pure silver, it is not even mostly silver. It will have <5% silver in it. The rest is tin, and copper usually, but you can still find some with lead too.  If you made a really good crimp connection with a proper tool, solder is not going to improve it much. If you did not make a good connection, it will. Solder does make connections more brittle and can lead to strands breaking.

If you really believe EMI is a problem, and often it can be within equipment itself, especially when dealing with large bandwidths and high impedance nodes, then point to point wiring will create more pathways for the reception and generation of EMI.  Anyone who has done high speed amplifiers and/or power electronics is always using the mantra to keep loop sizes as small as possible, and that requires a PCB.