Hi gang,
Just wondering what the ideal speaker gauge is for the phat beat? I’ve taken a leap to mod an old radio with a pi zero and the phat beat. VU meter works a treat and as far as I can tell the output is set properly but no matter what I do the speaker wires I’m using don’t seem to lock in (tinned and not tinned has been attempted) Tried a couple of sizes but I’m doubting that either set has made a connection at all and am not sure if I’m doing something dumb or just using the wrong sizing.
Any traps for newbies I should know?
What I do, is press down on the release thingy’s with a screw driver. Like you do to remove the wire. I just press down until my wire slides in easily. Then let them go back to normal and see if my wires stay in. Trying to force them in just didn’t work for me. They just kinked up without going in. Too small a gauge and they will just slide in and out without grabbing.
Yeah that wasn’t a bad idea, using that the R+ was able to grip but can’t seem to get it gripping on the other 3 (and makes it hard to be sure the issue isn’t elsewhere if I’m not 100% the speaker cables are actually making contact)
Using the above method I can get R+ to grip, in the sense that it doesn’t pull out easily like the other 3. Taking that cable and trying it on the other terminals just slides out and taking other cables that slide out in the other terminals do grip in R+ so am starting to narrow in on potentially faulty/broken speaker terminals on the phat beat…
For extra testing I know that the speaker works as I rubbed the wires against a battery and got some static sound. The speaker is a 8ohm 3w speaker and I’m aiming to run the phat beat in mono if that makes any difference (though if it was an issue I’d expect to at least get A noise out of it.)
If you want to make a small wire beefier, fold the striped end back on itself and solder tin it. The wires I’m using are about the same gauge as the jumper wires Pimoroni sells. 22AWG I think?