Installing Passive Crossover Help!
 

Hello Forum! (bigaudio :tiphat:)

I want to install the passive crossovers that came with my Polk Audio db1001 tweeters. My tweeters are connected in parallel to my 6.5s. Now every website I have been to told me to wire the capacitor to the positive wire of the tweeter. Problem is my capacitors have both + and - wires on each side. In short, this is how many sites showed the install:
http://i.imgur.com/FzfCd.png

My this is how my polk audio passive crossovers look:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ot3/db1001.jpg

So do I just wire this to the + and - parts of the tweeter or do I have to do something special because it's wired in parallel. The instructions are utter crap and explain nothing. Here is how I visualize running it:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../capacitor.jpg

Also please don't recommend active crossovers or anything like that. I am on a tight budget! Thanks for any input.

wat the heck?

just hook up the + to the + and - to the -. :)

But every other capacitor it seems is only wired to the plus side of the tweeter. I just don't want to destroy anything haha. To me it seemed easy to + to +, - to -. Then I started reading and everyone was saying do it only to +. Confused me. Thanks for the input kenchan. I can always count on you! :tiphat:

watch, with my luck, the tweeter will now blow up. :rofl2:

If I something catastrophic happens to my system...

I Will Kill You - Taken (2009) - YouTube

:eekdance: :icon17:

Anyone else feel free to chime in! Also the positive wire has the red stripe? I haven't pulled out the tweeter yet.

The red stripe is your + just wire them up + to + and - to - you shouldn't have any problems.

Thanks big! :tiphat:

elan- if anything goes south, Big did it. :icon17:

the wiring described by Mr Big, and Mr Kenchan would be correct, Elan. No need to overthink it! Lol

If you take the shrink tubing off and examine the PCB/wiring, I bet you will find that the "-" side passes straight through. As other have said, wire the input side of the crossover to the "main speaker" (or the amp output) and the other end to the tweeter.

Edit: FWIW, the +/- is for phasing purposes. Speakers/drivers don't have polarity in the same way that, say, the amplifier power does.

Thanks for the help everyone! Too much over thinking for such a simple thing. :P

I gotta stir the pot and ask a question on this one.

You mention you have your tweeter and woofer wired in parallel. What is the resistance of each of those speakers (both 4 ohm?). If so, and you are using the 3.9 ohm resistor in series from your amp with the woofer and tweeter in parallel you've created a 6 ohm load for your amp. Your diagram mentions 8 ohms.

Every capacitor will always have a + and - terminal. The current flowing through a capacitor is equal to the capacitance value times the rate of change of the input voltage. This property makes them ideally suited for high frequency filtering. At low rates of change, the current is small - this is the effect of a high pass filter. If memory serves the 4.7uF is very common with tweeters because its 3dB cutoff freq is at ~15.9kHz. BUT the capacitor needs to be wired in series to your tweeter not parallel to be effective.