Inductor wires coming lose? Should I worry?

[lucasa.miller]

I bought the ERSE 1.5mH 18AWG inductor and noticed some of the wires were lose. I know inductors are wound around a certain diameter a certain number of times. I tried to zip tie it back, but it doesn't lay next to the other wires.

My question is will this make a difference? I'm building three speakers with the same inductor and this is the only one that is like this. I bought the other two inductors a year ago and they came from the factory with two zip ties, instead of one, like this picture.



Here is the wire lifting up, you can tell it's shorter than the other wires, so it won't lay next to them.



This is in no way to flame PE, they have the best customer service out of any company I've ever dealt with. I'm just trying to figure out to send it back or not. I took this week off work to build these speakers. I did build the crossovers so they can fit through the woofer hole so if I do have to wait for the inductor I can finish the speakers and install the crossover last.

[johnnyrichards]

Can you measure them? If not, tape them tight and specs won't be too far off - probably no farther off than allowable tolerances, anyway.

[lucasa.miller]

What do you use to measure inductors? I have a multimeter.

[johnnyrichards]

Standard DMM would not work. A dedicated LCR meter or a simple jig + ARTA or a dedicated testing unit like the Woofer Tester is needed.

I am pretty sure if you tape it up tight, you will be fine and dandy

[johnnyrichards]

Download ARTA measurement suite.

Follow the directions found here.

Couple dollars and you will have a decent start to measuring drivers and components

[moron#99]

No, you should not worry. Lay it back into place as best you can and secure it against further unraveling.

wire the inductor in series with a 100 ohm resistor
hook them up to the speaker output of your sound card.
hook up one DVM to display the voltage across the 100ohm resistor.
hook up the other DVM to display voltage across the inductor.
adjust frequency until both voltages are equal.

| 2*pi*f*L | = | R |

L = 15.9 / Frequency


the freeware version of SigGen can be found here http://www.dr-jordan-design.de/signalgen.htm

[bangleiii]

One or a few loose wraps on an inductor that size will not change the value, but the problem would be the loose wraps vibrating..

you can wrap the coil in black tape or just use some quick set epoxie to hold the winding down.

[Dirk]

If you've got a half-used can of shellac laying around, tape that loose winding in place with masking tape and dip the inductor in the can and let it dry. Two or three dunks and the whole affair should stay stuck together indefinitely.

[2leftthumbs]

Or use zip ties instead of tape and do the same thing with shellac

[lucasa.miller]

I already zip tied the inductor and put together the crossover. I jacked up big time on cutting the tweeter faceplate. I'll post pics once I figure out how to fix it.

[moron#99]

Before dipping it is always good to test a small area of the existing paint. You don't want to accidentally melt through and cause a short.