I Damaged My Speaker... I Fixed My Speaker... (PIC HEAVY!!!!)

[syscokid]

I was very fortunate to be able to fix my damaged $170 Scumback speaker for about $23. So how did I damage it? Well, while I had the amp chassis on the operating table, the speakers in the combo cab were still connected to the amp with a 10' extension speaker cable. As I was moving the cab, the extension cable got stuck underneath another amp, and proceeded to rip off the speaker's wire terminals completely off the frame and speaker's lead wires completely off the voice coil. The proper and professional method to fix this damaged speaker is to recone it. Proper recone kits that will work for this speaker are about $50 to $90. Reconing by a pro is about $80 to $110 plus the cost of shipping if needed. But I decided to first try to repair the speaker without a full reconing job.

Injured speaker:



With a hot air gun, I heated up the perimeter of the dust cap till the adhesive got a little soft and used an exacto knife to separate the dust cap from the cone:



Instead of heating up the adhesive that is hiding the two voice coil wires, I decided to use acetone to soften up the glue and carefully pry up the wires. Not much to work with, and those voice coil wires sure are tiny:



The new and crusty old parts:



Tack on a bit of solder on the new speaker leads:



The plan is to tack on to the tiny bit of solder, the leading edge of the voice coil wire close to the end of the speaker lead wire. Then roll the speaker lead as the voice coil wire wraps itself around the speaker lead wire:



I was able to get about three complete revolutions of the voice coil wire to wrap around the speaker lead wire. At this point, I soldered the rest of the wrap-around voice coil wire to the speaker lead wire. The acetone discolored the cone:






With both speaker leads soldered to the voice coil leads, I tested and made sure the speaker is working at this point of the repair job:


TO BE CONTINUED...

 

[syscokid]

New wire terminal installed. I trimmed down the backing of the new terminal and punched a new mounting hole though it:



Soldered the new speaker lead wires first, then trimmed off the excess for a cleaner look:



The Black Speaker Glue not only secures the voice coil wires and speaker lead wires to the cone, it also makes some of that ugliness disappear:



I applied a bead of the black glue to underneath the lip of the new dust cap. The yellow painter's tape is a trick that I got from watching one of Uncle Doug's video on reconing speakers. This makes positioning and centering the dust cap onto the cone a lot easier:



The round metal base that holds the bristle pad to clean the soldering tip is going to come in handy:



See what I mean?



Looking much better now:



And good as new:



I installed this speaker into my 1x12 cab. Gave it a robust test for about a half an hour, an life is all good again! Syscokid is a happy camper...

 

[CabanaBoy]

Awesome, man. Great news for sure.
Some of favorite speakers have been and are repaired speakers.

 

[jtcnj]

Bravo, @syscokid , Bravo!!

That is some delicate surgery, well done, Greg!!

 

[Cadorman]

Very cool. Nice to see how this is done.

 

[Thatbastarddon]

Awesome!!!! I’m happy for your victory!
I have to ask a silly question, and it’s only because I’m curious...
Did you verify the polarity of the new terminals?

 

[Hackmaster]

Excellent job and great tutorial.
That took patience, steady hands and some good eyesight.
It is as good as new, and now it has a story.
Instant MOJO!!!

 

[syscokid]

Awesome!!!! I’m happy for your victory!
I have to ask a silly question, and it’s only because I’m curious...
Did you verify the polarity of the new terminals?

Yes, the terminals have plenty of polarity...

 

[JohnnyGoo]

Nice work Greg.

 

[syscokid]

That took patience, steady hands and some good eyesight.

This helps a lot:

 

[Hackmaster]

This helps a lot:

View attachment 44359

I have one without the lights.
It's indispensable.

 

[smitty_p]

Is it too late to say, “That’ll never work!”?

It is?

Okay,

Then, let me just say...terrific job!

 

[eSGEe]

oh ..................speaker --- thought you said sphincter...............................

 

[syscokid]

oh ..................speaker --- thought you said sphincter...............................

That'll be for another thread... coming soon!

 

[smitty_p]

In the category of “Things You’ve Tried Because Nobody Told You It Wouldn‘t Work,” I once fixed a torn speaker cone by gluing a patch that I cut from a coffee filter over the tear.

I eventually replaced the speaker, but the patch worked.

 

[RVA]

Very nice work! You are becoming quite a skilled surgeon!

 

[JohnnyGoo]

Toilet paper or paper towel and fingernail polish.

 

[BFT Gibson]

Great job !!

 

[Amp Mad Scientist]

New wire terminal installed. I trimmed down the backing of the new terminal and punched a new mounting hole though it:
View attachment 44347


Soldered the new speaker lead wires first, then trimmed off the excess for a cleaner look:
View attachment 44352


The Black Speaker Glue not only secures the voice coil wires and speaker lead wires to the cone, it also makes some of that ugliness disappear:
View attachment 44348


I applied a bead of the black glue to underneath the lip of the new dust cap. The yellow painter's tape is a trick that I got from watching one of Uncle Doug's video on reconing speakers. This makes positioning and centering the dust cap onto the cone a lot easier:
View attachment 44349


The round metal base that holds the bristle pad to clean the soldering tip is going to come in handy:
View attachment 44350


See what I mean?
View attachment 44351


Looking much better now:
View attachment 44353


And good as new:
View attachment 44354


I installed this speaker into my 1x12 cab. Gave it a robust test for about a half an hour, an life is all good again! Syscokid is a happy camper...

Wow dude, that was fancy.

 

[Amp Mad Scientist]

This helps a lot:

View attachment 44359

You have X-Ray vision TOO? w/external battery pack damn