Hot Glue for Crossover Components

[zinger084]

So I began assembling my crossover and then decided to think after I did my first high pass… is hot glue safe for gluing down components?

I have some foil Jantzens I glued flat side down and also Jantzen caps and Dayton ceramic resistors.

I tried searching but wasn’t coming up with a lot (on my phone).

[rpb]

I've done it in the past, but I'd prefer to use zip ties now. The heat from the glue might damage the caps.

[zinger084]

Well I may have heard one of my caps sizzle up (unless the hot glue just burned the outer plastic) so I have an LCR meter coming tomorrow and will measure all components prior to soldering.

I think I’ll transition to silicone moving forward.

[djg]

I use epoxy now, a hot glued coil came loose during shipping so I switched.

[zinger084]

I assume as long as the component values checkout with the meter, then none are damaged and I can continue (with either non acidic silicone or expoxy.

Another item - the Jantzen air core foil inductor are shipped with a wood core. This may sound silly, but, do I remove this wood core before use? I feel like it holds the inner foils away from unspooling but figured I’d ask…

[jhollander]

I hot glue everything and add a few zip ties for the heavy inductors. I don't use as much hot glue as I have in the past because I change out components and it's a pita to get them off of a wood x-o board.

[jml]

I used hot glue previously and it failed during a move, seriously damaging the crossover. I’d highly suggest using zip ties with the glue OR epoxy.

cheers!

Joe

[DeZZar]

I hot glue everything but I'm also using perforated board and the hot glue pushes through the holes creating a strong bond. I also put all the wires through the board and solder everything up on the back after twisting the ends together - so even if the glue did fail the component would still hold itself to the board anyway. On really heavy parts I also add a zip tie.

Your hot glue really shouldn't be hot enough to 'sizzle'!!??

[zinger084]

DeZZar it was odd… I know. My glue gun gets to 380F and I know the melting points of some of these capacitor components is less. The other caps did not, but the glue gun sat fit maybe a little while longer before applying to this one.

My boards are perforated too.

I’ll proceed with caution on the remainder and probably use something besides hot glue. I’m going to check LCR meter too.

[Kornbread]

For an inductor, I'll pre-drill holes for zip ties, lay a heavy bead of glue, place inductor and cinch it down with the zip ties before glue cools. Some times, due to space constraints, some of the smaller components stacked on an inductor, I'll use hot glue to hold them in place.

Had a dropsy incident recently where the impact ripped the zip ties and some glued components from the thin formica board on which they were mounted. Now I use a higher temp glue gun and stronger glue. They make different types of hot glue for different uses.

[zinger084]

Quick update - no damage to components on board due to high temp hot glueing.

However, interesting find… the Jantzen foil air core inductors rated for 0.470mH are reading 0.550mH (a 17% error!) on a meter with resolution of 7% max error. Any thoughts on that?!

[DeZZar]

I probably wouldn't be happy with that given the price you pay for those foil inductors. I measure all mine with a DATS unit and even the cheapest bobbin type inductors I have measure bang on. Jantzen is normally top notch so its a little surprising. 0.55 instead of 0.47 on the tweeter doesn't have a significant effect overall - but it does alter the phase relationship a little.

[fpitas]

Did you measure them before gluing?

[jhollander]

Many air core inductors read high. I adjust the coil by unwinding or check the value in my simulation to see if the change is meaningful.

[zinger084]

Thought I’d post all my values here. I think a lot are off but I checked my meter, at least on resistance, against another meter and it was spot on.

[djg]

Nice tape labels. Mine are usually halfassed.

[PWR RYD]

Are you measuring them while they are connected in the circuit?

[zinger084]

Great question.. but no, I’m not, and that clearly wouldn’t work.

[zinger084]

sharing the tolerances here for everyone's use... 14 of the 24 are outside their range.