Ferrule? Tinning? or bare wire?

How do you connect your amp power and ground? Ferrules seem to be very popular. I used to Tin the wires with solder so they wouldn't fray and because I thought that was a better connection than mashing the strand with a set screw.

How do you do it?

 

Krimp ferrule for smaller gauge, ring terminals for ground, main power depends on the amp. Usually ferrules though. I also solder when using spades, forks, and ring terminals to secure the wire.

 

I just did mine yesterday with ferrules. Had never used them and waited a week or them to arrive to do my final install with them. If I had to do it over again I’d just tin ‘em and run. Had two issues with the ferrules. 1) Crutchfield wire doesn’t work with them because the positive is square and 2) I accidentally pushed a ferrule in too far and it got stuck in the amp. Had to pull the amp to extract it out. Had tinned wires before in previous vehicles and the wires never came loose. Just my $.02.

edit: one thing I will say in their defense is if you’re joining multiple wires to go into one location (say FR or FL) then they’re a huge help and keep things clean.

 

Put heat shrink tape over the end of the ferrule and the wire, will help keep the end attached.

 

Yeah that probably would have helped.

I will say that on the club 4505 amp the 4ga ferrules do not fit well. The set screws on the + and - do not go all the way up so you need to pre-crush the tips of the power ferrules before insertion.

 

Same when I was running a Pioneer GM-D8704, you could run the 4ga to a terminal block and then a 8ga to the amp. You'd never even be getting close to having a bottle neck with 8ga running 4x45Ws.

I ran 4ga to a two way split terminal block, 8ga from that to the 2 amps I was running.

 

If I had the right sized ferrules handy I'd prefer to use them.