by solongaudi » Wed Oct 26, 2011 6:34 pm
Adding my 3 cents purely cause I'm passionate, never crip, I have repaired SO many systems due to crimping it is ridiculous. My first preferance is to cut and solder using heatshrink to cover fittings, this is THE best. Second best, for if you ever want to return the car to stock standard form is the Aeropro adapters, these are a fantastic bit of kit that really take the guess work out of wiring, they keep the phaseing correct and i've never seen one break. Not THE best, but a damned close second to cut and shut solder, Crimping I avoid like the bubonic plauge, even on the 'crimp' style u-terminals I have goind to my amp, I take the plastic off, solder the wire into it then re-insulate with heatshrink. Time consumeing, but in the 50 odd installs I've done for friends, family and myself over the years, I have a 0% failure rate with this method...
Note, for all the sparkies that want to argue that crimping works just fine for 240v and 3-phase, yes, thats because 240V is also required by law to have a cable detensioning system, meaning there is 0% movement at the joint, therefore no failure. This is NOT the case for car audio, where day to day driving over bumps, pot holes and railway lines can cause up to 20mm of cable movement, causeing metal fatigue in the copper and eventually, failure...
As my Grandfather said, if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing right the first time. Others may also know this as measure twice, cut once.
Peace!