On Jul 14, 6:54*pm, Dick Pierce
wrote:
On Jul 14, 5:53*pm, ChrisCoaster wrote:
My problem is, and I know you're supposed to
heat the part you're soldering TO, not what you
are soldering to it - with the iron, but it
seems to take forever. *
Well, uhm. Are you soldering the wire to the terminal
or the terminal to the wire (hint: it doesn't make
any difference: you're soldering BOTH to each other).
So, the trick is you have to heat BOTH parts. And
you have to use a clean iron of adequate power:
Too low a power means that the temperature of the
tip drops precipitously when it comes in contact
with the work, and the operation ends up being
a mess.
I'm basically replacing what looks like 22AWG
speakerwire in a detachable boombox with 20AWG. *
I mean, the original wires look like doorbell wire,
and I really have to crank the volume to hear
much.
If you think that's going to make any real difference,
you're going to be very disappointed.
How long are the wires, 10 feet? 10 feet of 22 gauge
speaker wire will have a resistance of 0.32 ohms, while
10 feet of 20 gauge will have a resistance of 0.2 ohms,
Assume nominal 8 ohms speakers, switching from
22 to 20 gauge will give you a 0.13 dB increase in
sound for the same volume setting. That's basically
completely inaudible under all but very controlled
situations. Even if you're starting with 24 gauge
(0.5 ohms) and switch to 18 gauge (0.13 ohms),
that's only going to give you, at most, less than
0.4 dB of level increase.
Basically, unless the wires are broken or the
solder joints are bad, your speaker wires almost
certainly NOT the problem. Substituting heavier
wires is going to be a total waste of time an effort
to cure that problem.
So I know I have to desolder all that old wire
off the eyeholes of those terminals before
putting the 20 on. *I'm assuming it's 22AWG -
of course, there's no rating on the wire itself.
If you want to demonstrate the problem, get
come heavier gauge speaker wire and some
screw-terminal alligator clips and simply clip
the wires on without desoldering the other wires
(making sure you observe polarity): that'll
quickly prove whether the wires are the problem
or not.
But, unless the wires are actually broken,
you don't have a problem that new wires will
solve.
____________________
So basically, it's just an underpowered boombox?
BTW three feet of speaker wire couldn't be wrapped around the storage
posts on the backs of the speakers on this thing, let alone ten!
Remember, its' a late 80s JVC boombox we're talking about here. The
speakers detach, and can each be placed about two feet from the center
section(dual cassette, tuner, etc.).
I collect and restore(within my capability) any ghetto blasters I can
get ahold of that were manufactured before the Bush years - and that's
papa, mind you.
They make excellent platforms for mp3 players with
the aux jacks pretty much all of them had, and most of them had
reasonable shortwave tuners(ever hear of that on a box nowadaze??).
You could check BBC news or practice a language you were learning, or
synch all the clocks in the house with the universal time signals.
I got this piece off e-bay for 1/2 of what it cost new, and the worst
problems with it were just a load of dust and grime covering it from
top to bottom. Everything works, just had to spray compressed air in
the volume & balance controls to stop the crackling.
An awesome piece, typical vintage JVC - good sound - just wish it
played a *little* louder.