Making our own MS terminals

Post by **Eric D** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 1:49 pm

I know I have talked about this before, but I was just chatting with a member about it, and I think it may be time to push this ahead.

I have a source for tooling to make the mold for MS terminals. I also have a source to inject the plastic. White or black, we pick the color. They would do small production runs, so we can have both colors probably. Also, I took a MS terminal to him and he said the plastic used in it is very cheap. If we made new terminals we would use more modern "space age" plastics which would be virtually indestructible (those were his words).

This would just be the plastic parts. You would supply your current brass parts to put in new plastic shells. Maybe some day we can make new brass, but that is beyond what I am willing to do now.

Who would be interested in these parts? Also, what part is most critical? There are the power terminals, the two pole speaker terminals, and the 4 pole speaker terminals. There are also two styles of the 4 pole and they are not comparable. I personally think the two pole speaker terminals are what is broken the most and what we need to focus on.

The only thing holding me back at this point is a CAD model of a MS terminal.

Post by **joerg** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 2:02 pm

I´ve been at a few known spots here in austria and showed them what i needed. I ended up with getting quotes for doing the tools only, that kinda blew the roof off my head.

I for sure support the idea you have and would be in to take a few of the off your hands when they are finished. Even tough i need prefer grey ones. I might be able to find a guy that does a CAD drawing for me. But that will take some time.

I think we would have enough with just going with the speaker terminals from the MS2125/MS2250 and their power connector.

GX3 · Post by **GX3** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 6:05 pm

joerg wrote: Even tough i need prefer grey ones.

Just dye the white one gray

Power and 2 pole speaker terminals I think would be the best place to start with this. Your right that they have the largest calling.

Post by **Rold Gold** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 8:58 pm

Paging Doctor Jacampb2.............................................................

Post by **Jacampb2** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:29 am

FuzzyHoNutz wrote:Paging Doctor Jacampb2.............................................................

What? I was sleeping?

Yeah, I can help, I have offered to before when this came up. If someone wants to send me shells, I can do cad drawings. I can also do the brass parts, but the plastic is the most important.

Injection molds are normally HUGE money to have made, are we understanding correctly that this is going to be a low cost/ "calling in some favors" type of job?

LMK, if anyone wants to dontate plastic for a short while, I will do drawings. I believe the ZX/Ti power/ground/rem blocks are already the same and I can do those from ones I have. Would need speaker terminal shells though.

Later,
Jason

Post by **Eric D** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 7:10 am

Well, the issue is I don't need CAD drawings, I need a solid model. Something like an IGS file. My friend would then process this file for shrink, and design a mold for it.

He said it would be far cheaper to make the mold without the holes for the set screws, and then have a jig setup to hand drill them later. This sounded a bit crude to me, but he assured me the parts would be nice even doing this.

The other problem is the power terminal is really quite complex. It has smooth corners and a recessed area around where the wires enter. This styling really looks good if you ask me, and I personally would like to continue the styling to the 2-pole speaker terminals which they never had. The 4-pole terminals on newer amps do have this styling and look great next to the power terminals. These same 4-pole terminals were used on the Bandit and Outlaw amps, although molded in black.

The tooling should be a few thousand at the most. My plan until I lost my job was to get all this done and then whore out the terminals on eBay to cover the costs of the tooling. I really doubt it would ever be a profit maker, but since the quantity of MS terminals in the world is really a fixed number at this point, it is merely a matter of time before all MS owners need them.

Additionally I have found some MS terminals break on their own not from abuse or shipping. The screws were put in with quite a bit of torque at the factory and over time cause some of them to crack off the mounting tab.

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 7:06 am

If you have the dimensions and everything, I can build you the 3D model in no time. Hell, if you have the actual part laying around that would be even better. Ive really been wanting to build a 3D scanner soon

Post by **Eric D** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 8:12 am

"build a 3D scanner", are you planning to build your own? That would be a hell of an undertaking!

I have all the terminal styles I am talking about and could probably send them too you. What format would your final model be exported as?

rlockwood · Post by **rlockwood** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:30 am

on the originals, was the plastic molded around the brass? or was the brass placed in after the plastic was finished?

(my son wanted me to use this smiley.)

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 1:45 pm

I can make it to almost any type of file. 3dm, 3ds, ai, obj, stl, iges, raw...You name it and I can export it for you.

As far as building a 3d scanner, it has actually become quite simple. There are several programs that use standard lasers to build from. After I get that done, Ill need an excuse to start on this:

Post by **Eric D** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 8:03 pm

The brass parts slide into the plastic parts and are loose. The set screws for the connections actually also retain the brass into the plastic.

rlockwood · Post by **rlockwood** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:17 pm

the parts could logically be machined at a much lower cost given your low quantity, unless i'm missing something.

KUB3 · Post by **KUB3** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 2:18 am

I have enough white terminals at last. But it's always worth having spares for the future "just in case" situations.

Maybe if everyone on PP chipped in $50 to $100 (or whatever they wanted) in advance, then divide up the stash of 1000's of units accordingly later. That way no one person has to pay a huge bill. Just a thought.

Or you could just sell them off individually on ebay. Put them on a nice rug, advertised as limited editions, never to be repeated

(I can only help drawing things in 2D, like logo's etc in Freehand / Illustrator, so no use here!)

Post by **Eric D** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 8:53 am

Machining them is not a bad idea, but I doubt it would be all that much cheaper, and I am concerned the parts would not be the same quality (looks).

Besides, once the tooling is made to mold them, I will keep it. If 10 years from now someone needs terminals, they can be molded again at that time. Due to the small numbers, the tooling will likely never wear out.

Putting them on a rug and dumping them on eBay is not a bad idea, and it would clearly stir the pot of those eBay "high rollers" you are referring to.

nico boom · Post by **nico boom** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:43 am

I have undertaken several attempts in the past ,to have those connectors made.
Closest solution was to machine the plastic housings, and fit them with round [not square] brass inserts.
After gold-plating the new inserts, the price was simply too high to give the go-ahead on this.
I think the original brass inserts will be usable in most cases, so only the plastic housings need to be injection-molded some way or another.
Since these housings are only used on the MS and MPS series, what numbers are we actually talking about..?
I will ask a new local company that does injection molding about it next week; one never knows....
In the mean time good luck working on this guys.

Post by **Eric D** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 6:45 am

The tooling is likely the expensive part. And since a friend of mine owns a shop making this tooling, he is willing to cut me a deal to do it.

I plan to make them and sell them on eBay to pay off the tooling over time.

nico boom · Post by **nico boom** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:09 am

Eric D wrote:The tooling is likely the expensive part. And since a friend of mine owns a shop making this tooling, he is willing to cut me a deal to do it.

I plan to make them and sell them on eBay to pay off the tooling over time.

From an economical point of view that will be the only way to make it work Eric; hope it will happen so!

Post by **mhyde71** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:17 am

there is also a process called SLS (think thats what it is called anyways) AND when i was looking into it a local company to me offered to do a batch of 100 using the SLS process (which requires little to no tooling- don't know the specifics...) but when dealing with lower numbers of like under 500 the SLS process would be the way to go- but over that amount the most efficient/economic way is to have the tooling made up...

Funny thing is when i was poking around with the idea... i actually got in touch with the exact same company in Taiwan that made them back in the day for PG- Thought i was on to something when I spoke to the rep that handles it for PG in Taiwan and he said (at first) sure how many do you need....when it got down to it, he realized/learned that the tooling had been junked- prolly maxed out and sold for scrap or tossed in alley somewhere then sold for scrap from one of the country Chinese people.

Lucky for me that my wife is Chinese and was able to speak to him directly and clearly (i mean he did speak English) but well we know ho that goes. - BUT it was a major let down-
thought for sure I was onto something there when i was able to find out who made them... BUT the quote for the tooling to do again was to the likes of 7500/10K -

Post by **mhyde71** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:22 am

AND to add to what Nico was saying about having the centers made to be round... same thing i heard from another local fab shop- they said the square cut outs would have to broached and then it is still difficult b/c of the flange at one end - or thats why it would have to be broached- BUT this is going by or using even a different process... They said they would make a couple prototypes for me at cost and was looking at 150 for a pair of them.
Never pursued it after that

ended up just getting a couple TA's off the bay and using those connectors for the MS1K instead. fixing the broken ones and selling off the TA's for a lil loss, but got out of it for about the same money i think....and they were OEM.

I have a couple extra connectors Eric if you need some for samples- BUT I WOULD NEED BACK whenever it is possible.

I have power and speaker term's I could pony up for however long you need them for whatever your into doing...?!

rlockwood · Post by **rlockwood** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:50 am

mhyde71 wrote:there is also a process called SLS (think thats what it is called anyways) AND when i was looking into it a local company to me offered to do a batch of 100 using the SLS process (which requires little to no tooling- don't know the specifics...) but when dealing with lower numbers of like under 500 the SLS process would be the way to go- but over that amount the most efficient/economic way is to have the tooling made up...

Funny thing is when i was poking around with the idea... i actually got in touch with the exact same company in Taiwan that made them back in the day for PG- Thought i was on to something when I spoke to the rep that handles it for PG in Taiwan and he said (at first) sure how many do you need....when it got down to it, he realized/learned that the tooling had been junked- prolly maxed out and sold for scrap or tossed in alley somewhere then sold for scrap from one of the country Chinese people.

Lucky for me that my wife is Chinese and was able to speak to him directly and clearly (i mean he did speak English) but well we know ho that goes. - BUT it was a major let down-
thought for sure I was onto something there when i was able to find out who made them... BUT the quote for the tooling to do again was to the likes of 7500/10K -

selective laser sintering.. its a rapid prototyping technique.. spread a layer of powder onto a table, use a laser to solidify the section you want to keep, drop the table down a few thousandths, spread more powder.. rinse and repeat. not sure how well it applies to these, but the machines typically have a large table, since the laser doesnt have to travel much (just rotates on 2 axis) so somebody could fit a ton of these on it.

I think it usually ends up with a result similar to modern stereolithography, which is a brittle part that's great for checking fit, but not really usable. I'm not intimately familiar with it though.

also, i'm fairly certain theres enough room there to machine the corners out to allow for the original inserts to be used, but my opinion may change if I had one infront of me.

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 10:13 am

If anyone wants to send me a rough sketch with the dimensions, I will mock it up. Although, they look very similar to the zx/ti series terminals. Are they same? If that is the case I can start building the 3d file after New Years.

Also, what terminals in specific do you want?

Post by **Eric D** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:31 pm

The MS power terminals are the same as the ZX/Ti terminals (on the newer MS amps that is).

I have all the terminals I need, I just need to make CAD models of them. I would get around to it, but I have been kind of busy with the holidays.

thingy · Post by **thingy** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 5:06 am

actually if you get a mould made of brass it's not so time consuming to make (all is relative) thats how we make prortotype moulds if the designers need to see how the ejection and other potential problems work - and it can make enough teminals to last a lifetime if it doesn't have to be polycarbonate - i think abs plastic would do ok

SLICK · Post by **SLICK** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:39 pm

http://phoenixphorum.com/ms-series-guys-vt13029.html