The Bully Build Begins

0 Members and 5 Guests are viewing this topic. Read 44387 times.

nlitworld

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 2541
  • Strange things are afoot at the Circle K
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #180 on: 1 Aug 2025, 08:19 pm »
Lol, always better to ask the right question, "How many rolls did it take to do your room?".

And yeah, wiring speakers will always be a just barely enough, never too much scenario with the kits. I had maybe 6" spare on my tweeters, but was 2" tighter than ideal on woofers.  :duh: Not exactly a lot of wiggle room.

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #181 on: 1 Aug 2025, 08:28 pm »
I made sure of the wiggle room, that's why I'm short now. I was super paranoid about having enough to connect the midrange drivers in parallel. Well, the first one I did, posted above, had maybe 3" I needed to cut off? I also had a wild idea of how I would arrange the crossover a certain way to optimize wire routing. Wasted a lot of wire going down that road.

I can see ways I would do things differently but that's how it always goes, right?

Solarflares

  • Restricted
  • Posts: 119
  • Musical Guru and part-time Oxygen-Thief.
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #182 on: 1 Aug 2025, 09:24 pm »
I can see ways I would do things differently but that's how it always goes, right?
Indeed it does.
Still, good job so far.
Those cabinets are very nice.
For wiring, so long as the large inductors are away from the woofers, then you’re free to do it how you like.

I re-configured guitar fx-racks for various people over the years, using their existing equipment, and the heavy-lifting was always to get the guy to explain what he wanted out of the setup.
Some pretty mind-boggling signal routing a lot of it - using midi-switchers.
Simple ergonomics came into it as well, so before having it physically in my workshop, I could have a good idea of how it would be, using just a list of the gear, and customer’s needs.
I might spend a few days with a notepad and a pencil.
The main premise was to keep mains cables one side, and signal cables the other. All secured in side-runs.
Then you always have one rack with mains termination on the wrong side! So the undesired compromise threatens. Ok. Balanced it is then. Back to the notepad and pencil, since I would have to re-position the racks that were unbalanced.
I do remember one rack on a Friday afternoon, where I literally ran out of cable, and needed just one final stereo jack-plug to replace a mono one. I was 3” short on the cable needed. I drove 20 miles to get that plug and 1 metre of cable!
Then had to drive an extra 50 miles to get the rig to his concert, rather than his house.
Spent the night programming and hand-switching his rig, with him prompting me during and in-between songs!
And the band played the most terriblist shit too!

Will be keen to see your finished work, and get your thoughts on the results.
Almost there ‘eh.

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #183 on: 4 Aug 2025, 02:20 pm »
I am still waiting for my wire order. I don't have a tracking number so it shows up whenever.

The stands are almost done.




KTS

Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #184 on: 4 Aug 2025, 11:37 pm »
Looking really good!

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #185 on: 5 Aug 2025, 08:45 pm »
These stands are complete. I received the wire I needed last night so the plan is to have the speakers working by Sunday evening.




SlushPuppy

Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #186 on: 5 Aug 2025, 08:48 pm »
These stands are complete. I received the wire I needed last night so the plan is to have the speakers working by Sunday evening.

Those stands look great! Impressive work!  :thumb:

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #187 on: 5 Aug 2025, 08:52 pm »
Thank you!  :)

It's hard to imagine this type of work through someone else's eyes. When I look at them, I see what's wrong with them.  :lol:

nlitworld

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 2541
  • Strange things are afoot at the Circle K
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #188 on: 6 Aug 2025, 04:48 am »
Thank you!  :)

It's hard to imagine this type of work through someone else's eyes. When I look at them, I see what's wrong with them.  :lol:

Haha, no matter how many projects you do that turn out phenomenal, it's hard to turn off the self-criticism. For as good as your stands and Bully's look (and they do look really damn good), I'm sure they're going to sound even better. Really looking forward to reading that part of the journey. :thumb:

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #189 on: 6 Aug 2025, 05:51 pm »
I put my Infinity RS5 speakers on the stands last night with Herbies fat dots. There is a complete absence of vibration in the floor. That's going to take some time to get used to. My whole life, I've only heard speakers sitting on the floor and shaking the room.  :|




Early B.

Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #190 on: 6 Aug 2025, 06:22 pm »
I put my Infinity RS5 speakers on the stands last night with Herbies fat dots. There is a complete absence of vibration in the floor. That's going to take some time to get used to. My whole life, I've only heard speakers sitting on the floor and shaking the room.  :|

Oh, just wait until you drop those Bully's on the stands. It will be a complete -- "Oh, WTFJH??" moment.

SlushPuppy

Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #191 on: 6 Aug 2025, 06:24 pm »
Oh, just wait until you drop those Bully's on the stands. It will be a complete -- "Oh, WTFJH??" moment.

 :lol:

SlushPuppy

Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #192 on: 6 Aug 2025, 06:24 pm »
Haha, no matter how many projects you do that turn out phenomenal, it's hard to turn off the self-criticism. For as good as your stands and Bully's look (and they do look really damn good), I'm sure they're going to sound even better. Really looking forward to reading that part of the journey. :thumb:

 :thumb:

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #193 on: 12 Aug 2025, 05:28 pm »
The next struggle I'm dealing with is soldering 3 14 AWG wires into one tube connector. It seems you need a flame thrower to get enough heat on that joint to flow the solder properly. I tried a 550 degree soldering iron and a 1000 degree soldering gun. Both of these resulted in cold solder joints. My crimper didn't do a good job crimping either.

I believe what is going wrong is that I left the male pin in the tube connector which is acting like a most awesome heat sink. The soldering gun tip goes cold the moment it touches the joint.

I will try again but remove the male pin from the tube connector before soldering. Hopefully I will see a far better result.

In the meantime, I feel like the crimping was not great and the soldering was not great at all. I feel like the right thing to do would be to replace the tube connectors (for $50 :( ) and use the new technique (remove the male pin) to accomplish a much better connection.

Peter J

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 1950
  • Hmmmm
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #194 on: 12 Aug 2025, 06:09 pm »
Maybe this is what you've done already, but I'd tightly twist all three together with linesman pliers, tin the twisted wire ends and perhaps the tube connector, crimp, then solder. Part of the problem with crimping is wall thickness of tube connector and the seam in the tube but I would think that might be minimized buy a bulkier three wire bundle.

Tyson

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 11562
  • Without music, life would be a mistake.
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #195 on: 12 Aug 2025, 06:33 pm »
I just leave the tips of the tube connectors hollow and just solder the wire to the exposed end tab.

Danny Richie

Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #196 on: 12 Aug 2025, 08:17 pm »
The next struggle I'm dealing with is soldering 3 14 AWG wires into one tube connector. It seems you need a flame thrower to get enough heat on that joint to flow the solder properly. I tried a 550 degree soldering iron and a 1000 degree soldering gun. Both of these resulted in cold solder joints. My crimper didn't do a good job crimping either.

I believe what is going wrong is that I left the male pin in the tube connector which is acting like a most awesome heat sink. The soldering gun tip goes cold the moment it touches the joint.

I will try again but remove the male pin from the tube connector before soldering. Hopefully I will see a far better result.

In the meantime, I feel like the crimping was not great and the soldering was not great at all. I feel like the right thing to do would be to replace the tube connectors (for $50 :( ) and use the new technique (remove the male pin) to accomplish a much better connection.

See the photos and instructions in this thread. https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=94014.msg1958805#msg1958805

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #197 on: 12 Aug 2025, 09:10 pm »
I am assembling it the tube connectors the same as shown in the link Danny offered in response to my last posting.

I have been cleaning solder tip each time before soldering, add some solder to it for heat transfer and place the tip on the connector and wires at the same time. As soon as soldering gun or iron touches the joint, the solder goes cold instantly. If I try to feed more solder into it, it doesn't melt. Same experience using my soldering iron. The copper wire is absorbing enough of the heat that solder is unable to melt. I also had the male pin removed so I expected it to go better but I had the same result.

If a 100 watt soldering gun cannot get it hot enough and fast enough to melt/flow solder, I must need something more powerful. Danny's soldering gun is on another level.

The bottom line is, it will probably work but how will the signal be impaired? Or will it be impaired at all?

nlitworld

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 2541
  • Strange things are afoot at the Circle K
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #198 on: 13 Aug 2025, 12:38 am »
First off, you're correct to always solder with male pin removed. Even still, it would likely take a little bit to keep iron on that joint to get metal hot, then feed solder to it. I've done joints like that before with a small Hobo Depot Weller iron and it will work, but it'll take 15-20s of iron on that joint to heat and flow solder. As you can see from the the instructional thread, even they had some of the Teflon shrink back away from the joint from heat on the wire. Not a big concern, just make sure to have some heat shrink to cover.

In the future, you could have also made a 3-way joint right outside the tube connector with a single wire inside the tube. I know, hindsight 20/20, but that's what we learn in all our builds is how to do better next time. :lol:

robwm

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: The Bully Build Begins
« Reply #199 on: 13 Aug 2025, 04:59 pm »
I never thought of the three-way joining method. That may have worked as well but I did find that my soldering gun could not even heat one wire and a tube connector.

I ordered a Weller 200/300 watt industrial soldering gun. I should have it by the weekend. If this doesn't work, nothing will.  :lol:

A soldering stick or 100 watt soldering gun isn't going to work at all.