Last night's install of the Shunt Regulator upgrade was plagued by a comedy of errors ... all ultimately traceable to me having mixed up B-reg with A-reg, an error I missed twice when rechecking every step in the manual! I caught it the third time.
I fixed the mix up, but in the process of error-checking I snapped the thin gauge hook-up wire in a number of spots - sometimes repeatedly: i.e., I'd snap the wire, de-solder and replace it with a new piece, only to snap it again. To the point where I ran out of the supplied hook-up wire and used remnants of the heavier gauge wire supplied with the SR main kit in 2 or 3 spots. Is that problem? Voltage checks were bang on and where called for in the manual I got the same voltage readings on both A and B sides with no more than 1 volt difference. And it sounds amazing. The heavier gauge wire was only used to connect the Shunt board to the main panel/board, not to connect between different points on the Shunt board.
But if it is better to use the thinner gauge, I will order some teflon wire (28ga? 30ga?) and rewire the entire install (b/c I'm not entirely confident that the other thin wires aren't on the verge of breaking if poked and prodded while replacing the heavier gauge substitutions).
Each of the snapped wires broke off where they met the shunt regulator board. When I examined the broken end, it looked like the wires had been overcooked - I think I over heated them. I'm guessing those thin wires and pc board points don't dissipate heat nearly as rapidly as the heavier gauge or as rapidly as the same thin gauge connected to a terminal strip (none of them snapped at a terminal connection). It's also conceivable that I nicked them when wire-stripping - but that would be surprising b/c I used a stripping groove one size up (bigger in diameter) than the wire -- and checked to see that the bare wire would make no contact with the strippers.
Many thanks in advance,
Derek
