Post by Boomzilla on Jul 27, 2013 2:33:15 GMT -5
My Kimber 12 TC wires came with bananas on one end, spades on the other. The stock spades had a "two plate" design with a compression gasket in the middle. I didn't like them because I swap amps & speakers a lot and I had to continually loosen and tighten the posts. The stock bananas were loose in the speaker sockets. When the rubber gaskets expired on the stock spades, I chose to change to all bananas.
Here are the stock spades:
Lesson one - push the knife away from you when splitting insulation - not toward your thumb!
Once the stock solder melted, the original parts slid right off:
Since I already had them, I opted to install GLS-Audio locking banana plugs. I don't recommend these for the following reasons:
1. The screw collars on the plugs (which must turn to lock the plugs) won't fit over the wire setscrews unless the latter are flush with the body of the plug.
This is a problem because although the body is large enough to insert wires up to 10 ga. the setscrews are one length only. Since the screws must be long enough to lock down on 20 ga. wires, they protrude from the body of the plug excessively when using 12 ga. wire (which I did). I finally solved this by filing off the heads of the set screws flush with the body of the plug. Now the slots are gone, and the screws are there for life. Poor design!
2. The body of the plugs is not large enough in diameter for insulated wire.
To get the wires all the way into the plugs, about 1/2 inch of stripped wire is needed. If you had wire with a single insulator (most wires are this way), then it would be easy to strip a half-inch of insulation and insert the tip fully. With my "braided" wire, however, there was no convenient way to strip each individual strand. Therefore, on four of my eight tips, only one of the two locking screws in the body secures the wire to the plug.
3. The banana tips are not consistently sized.
Some of the bananas (even without the locking mechanism engaged) are too large in diameter to fit the sockets without applying LOTS of force. Others are so loose that the (difficult to engage) locking mechanism must be turned "all the way forward) to get a good lock. This speaks to poor quality control by the manufacturer.
Overall, I'd NEVER use the GLS plugs again. Here are the finished results:
About 1.5 hours total work time to get the old tips off and the new ones on. If the GLS plugs continue to give me problems, what other options are there?
Thanks - Boomzilla
Here are the stock spades:
Lesson one - push the knife away from you when splitting insulation - not toward your thumb!
Once the stock solder melted, the original parts slid right off:
Since I already had them, I opted to install GLS-Audio locking banana plugs. I don't recommend these for the following reasons:
1. The screw collars on the plugs (which must turn to lock the plugs) won't fit over the wire setscrews unless the latter are flush with the body of the plug.
This is a problem because although the body is large enough to insert wires up to 10 ga. the setscrews are one length only. Since the screws must be long enough to lock down on 20 ga. wires, they protrude from the body of the plug excessively when using 12 ga. wire (which I did). I finally solved this by filing off the heads of the set screws flush with the body of the plug. Now the slots are gone, and the screws are there for life. Poor design!
2. The body of the plugs is not large enough in diameter for insulated wire.
To get the wires all the way into the plugs, about 1/2 inch of stripped wire is needed. If you had wire with a single insulator (most wires are this way), then it would be easy to strip a half-inch of insulation and insert the tip fully. With my "braided" wire, however, there was no convenient way to strip each individual strand. Therefore, on four of my eight tips, only one of the two locking screws in the body secures the wire to the plug.
3. The banana tips are not consistently sized.
Some of the bananas (even without the locking mechanism engaged) are too large in diameter to fit the sockets without applying LOTS of force. Others are so loose that the (difficult to engage) locking mechanism must be turned "all the way forward) to get a good lock. This speaks to poor quality control by the manufacturer.
Overall, I'd NEVER use the GLS plugs again. Here are the finished results:
About 1.5 hours total work time to get the old tips off and the new ones on. If the GLS plugs continue to give me problems, what other options are there?
Thanks - Boomzilla
