Dome tweeter not responding

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I just finished a set of Troels Gravesens "Nomex 164", but when I connected the units there was no response from one of the Peerless tweeters. At first I thought I had a loose connection in my crossover, but it doesnt respond to anything (tried to connect a battery to the poles, but no response).

I was maybe a bit rough when I solder the speaker wire on (its a thick cable so it had to be very hot), maybe I just burned the wire to the voice coil? Is there anything I can do or do I just have to buy a new driver?

Btw, the other speaker is fully working and sounds really good, I will post a picture of them once I have this problem fixed.

Best regards
Peter
 
As you surmised, you have likely heated the lead(s) so much when trying to solder the wire to the tweeter's connection tabs that you may have either melted some internal part or caused the lead to unsolder to the voice coil. Either the tweeter is fatally damaged, in which case you have to buy another one, or it's not dead (yet) and you have a chance to repair it. To do a repair, you will have to open up the tweeter, e.g. remove the faceplate, remove the dome and then see if there is something you can fix. Not 100% sure on how to proceed, but there is a slim chance that you will succeed. Or you can just chalk it up to experience and buy another one now.

There is absolutely no need to solder a large wire on to the tweeter. There is very little current that the connection has to supply. Use 18 gauge wire and even then you don't need to use the full wire load. Use a hot soldering iron and don't dwell on the tweeter tabs.

-Charlie
 
I was maybe a bit rough when I solder the speaker wire on (its a thick cable so it had to be very hot)

You may have answered your own question. In the future tin the end of the wire first so the bulk of the heat is used before you ever touch the terminal. Then place the wire over it and heat the wire not the tab. Have the solder flow over the wire down onto the tab. Really cuts down on the heat that goes to the tweeter.
 
Thanks guys!!! I removed the diagraph (or whatever its called) from the face of the tweeter and the wires were indeed disconnected. Btw, the wires were TINY (at the size of one of the tiny strings in my speaker cable (made of maybe 100 of those). It really did set things into perspective seeing the size of those. Thanks for your help, I was on the edge to just ordering a new driver 🙂

/Peter
 
Yes that's a pretty cool new word 🙂

Aha, I must have thought about the word "diaphragm", but now that you mention it, there's something cool to "diagraph" 🙂

FYI: The speakers are now playing - both with treble as well 😉 The drivers aren't broken in, the ports aren't cut to the right length and I haven't tried different attenuations for the tweeter, but so far I like what I hear 🙂
 
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