joining multiple wires - best practices?

charlielaub

I need to wire up four drivers in parallel. In addition I will be routing the (+) lead through an inductor. The drivers will use 16ga stranded wire, and the inductor has 12ga solid wire. I would prefer not to use ye old colorful wire nuts unless I have to. These connections will be in the open and visible (behind the speaker).

How should I go about connecting these wires to insure good contact in a way that would also be visually attractive?

Would those multi gang spicing things (e.g. WAGO splicing connectors) work well for speaker type applications? Like these:
https://www.amazon.com/Splicing-Connector-Lever-Nut-Assortment-Pocket/dp/B07NKT2P2F/ref=sr_1_6

dcibel

Wago "lever nuts" are fine for this task.

But if you really want to be properly over-engineered hifi...

You can get small little bus bars of course.

charlielaub

Hmmm, not sure I need a bus bar. But that would get r dun I suppose!

ugly_woofer

Or you can solder and heat shrink it

charlielaub

I was trying to envision that. Soldering is the best, of course, in terms of connectivity. But with many wires it might get a bit clunky looking.

I ordered some of those WAGO connectors from Jeff Bezos and I will give them a try.

silverD

The WAGOs work great! They are easy to attach and hold well. We use them on the robotics team I mentor.

jhollander

I used solder, heat shrink, and Techflex sleaving. Like making fancy cables.

DrewsBrews

I would probably do a Y from 1 into two wires per pole and daisy chain a pair of soldered spade terminals off each of those. Then throw some heat shrink to tidy it up. I like to keep it basic utilitarian.

I have envisioned using stripped 12ga Romex, form it around the magnets and solder to each pole. Though I can imagine that ringing and eventually failing from fatigue. Unless could find little rubber pads to shove between the wires and magnets to provide some damping.

jr@mac

+1 for soldering. With some creative jumping you can avoid the "clunkiness".

The Wago is a good option, as well. Quick and easy.

charlielaub

I wanted to post a thumbs up about using those WAGO connectors... they just saved me from my own mistake. I managed to connect two of the four woofers with reverse polarity. Ye old battery test showed two cones moving forward while the other two were moving backwards. Dang that is a rookie mistake, and this is exactly why I do this test when using multiple drivers for any given band. Now, had I soldered and shrink tubed all of these connections I would have a messy job ahead of me to replace the wiring and I probably would have needed to redo everything from scratch. With the WAGOs I can just flip up the locking level on the offending wires, reverse them, and then flip the levers back down again. Nice! This possibility really made my day.

I am using 5-gang WAGOs to join the leads from the 4 drivers in my woofer panel. Four wires in and one wire out to the amp. A pair of these blocks allows me to easily parallel the drivers and is a nice looking and compact solution for my wiring needs. Why did I not try these before?

a4eaudio

Wago brand is good quality but there are lots of cheap knock-offs in all kinds of configurations. 1 in and 1, 2, 3 or 4 or. 2 in 4 out. 2 in 6 out. Etc.