The Cardas Patended Binding Post

Cable Asylum

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These binding posts are a recent innovation by Cardas, and the physical details can be seen on his website. The Patented Binding Post are configured for spade connectors ONLY.
I just installed these on a set of speakers. I installed two sets on each speaker as separate connections for the woofer and tweeter. There are separate cable runs for the tweeter and woofer. The spades I am using are the Luminous Audio spaded, and I chose bare copper for both the Cardas post and the Luminous spade. The Luminous spades come in a metric standard width and I had to round file the opening to accept the inch standard Cardas post. I used metallurgical grinding/polishing paper to prepare smooth flat sides to one side of the Luminous spade, and this side interfaces the Cardas post contact surface.
Thus far, I am very impressed with the functional quality of the Cardas Patended Binding Post. The clamping action of the post is such than only a straight compression is applied to fix the connector. The knurled knob tightens on the central bolt and compresses the thick glass filled nylon block onto the “top” side of the spade to compress it against the contact surface of the binding post conductor tube. There is no torque or twisting at the contact surface which can act to marr or spall the interfacing contact surfaces. This action is ideal for soft contact materials, like unplated copper, or silver because it appears easy to achieve and maintain the desired “gas-tight” fit. The machined contact surface of the Cardas post is not as smooth as I would prefer, concentric hi-lo machine tool marks are present, but I could not expediently configure a smoothing method, so I left these as received. I lubricated the knurled tightening knob with LPS 3 (dries to a heavy film) because it “feels” like the right thing to do. A hand tight torque seems more than enough to properly fix the spade connection.
My opinion about the own sides to the Cardas Patented Binding Posts relate exclusively to fabrication, and not to operation. My set were ordered for the long contact tube and binding bolt, as needed to go through the nominally 3/4 in. thick speaker panel. The receive binding bolt (round allen head type, grade 8, 1/4-28 thread) was too short for the length needed for the [ panel-mounting plate-compression block-knurled knob ] thickness. Don’t bother looking at the BigBox deserts for longer grade 8 1/4-28 hex bolts. I had to find an alternate hex head bolt at a proper hardware store, and still I had to use a die to extend the thread length to get the needed thread length. Cardas needs to look closely at this detail. (I absolutely would argue against using anything less than a grade 8 bolt here).
The glass filled nylon mounting plate is a rather complex cast part. I contains a threaded tube for fixing onto the centered binding bolt, it contains the base and fitting for the conductor tube, and it contains a raised boss to, supposedly, aid fitting the binding post for OEM operators. The raised boss plays a part in preventing rotation of the binding post assembly when the knurled knob is torqued. It is this boss which creates the most problem for the DIY’er. The boss is NOT concentric with conductor tube bore, and this prevents easy, convenient, and clean drilling of the speaker panel, because the same hole center cannot be successively used for a sequence of drill sizes and bit types. The user must drill the central binding bolt hole first, because the recess needed to accommodate the boss intersects the hole area and makes accurate drilling impossible (the drill will walk to an unrestrained side). Nor are the bosses a single simple cylindrical shape, rather they are a complex shape with one side flatted. I had to make oversized recesses to accommodate the odd boss shape, and then had to fill these with epoxy paste in order to positively capture the binding post base at the panel surface. Cardas needs seriously to look at this detail.
Despite the complaints, the reader should understand that I think the Cardas post are functionally fabulous.
In using the bare copper contact material, the surfaces should be deoxidized before connection make-up. I use straight distilled white vinegar on a soaked paper towel, immediately followed by 91% isopropyl alcohol (iso and water mix, only) on a soaked paper towel. The vinegar cleans the copper to a bright finish, the alcohol rinses any residue. The reader can drop a copper item in the vinegar to see for themselves how fast the cleaning action is.
I have yet to set-up the amp connections. Right now I am just running the woofers, in order to break in some new DIY speaker cables. I will soon modify the amp chassis to accept two sets of the Cardas Patented posts using the shorter binding bolts and contact tubes.

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Parts Connexion

Topic - The Cardas Patended Binding Post - NewbieBaby 09:41:39 11/23/06 (2)

I have owned The Cardas Patented Binding Posts for over 3 years and ... - Garth 22:08:01 11/23/06 (0)

Re: The Cardas Patended Binding Post - mitch2 17:38:04 11/23/06 (1)

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