Well boys, since I worked for a connector company and in aerospace and on a lot of automotive wiring, I think I need to straighten this all out. You are throwing out a lot words. Connector, plug, metal wire connectors, female spade connector...... none of it is correct. Even some so called electrical supply companies are all screwed up. Then you got your FLAPS commanders and bloggers and so on.
1. The TERMINAL I see at post 1459096 is a TERMINAL.....NOT A CONNECTOR. DO NOT call it a connector.
It is NOT a spade configuration. A spade is a fork. (of the insulated crimp on variety) NEVER use a spade. The one shown is not a blade configuration either. It is a unsealed female Packard 56 terminal for use in a Packard 56 connector. The male and female Packard 56 terminals are of a special design.
2. The one shown can be soldered or crimped to the wire, or both. A good crimp is all you need for our stuff.
3. Spade, Blade, Bullet, Ring tongue, Flag.... terminals are crimp on. The ones everybody uses to do wiring. Insulated usually. See no. 7 below. The blades and bullets have male and female which can mate together to connect two wire ends together. So the aftermarket calls them "wire connectors". Don't use them for that. No hook terminals either.
4. There are male and female blade terminals. In electrical, there is male and female everything. Terminals, contacts, connector shells. The term plug and receptacle is used both in aerospace and home wiring making us all screwy. They are different animals. anyway............
5. The uninsulated female terminal shown in this thread is used INSIDE a connector. That's why is has a stick up tab, to retain it...... in....(are you ready?)...A Packard 56 connector shell. The connector that was used in 50's, and up, in cars and trucks. I think it appeared in 1956. Packard became Delphi. The uninsulated/unsealed male counterpart is used inside a connector and is kind of a blade that is split to create a spring that catches in the side of the connector shell. Both are front release/rear removable.
6. When a male and female connector shell is loaded with terminals ("contacts" in the aerospace world) with wires attached to the terminals, it makes a connector. You plug them/mate them together or onto a component that has a built in connector half. like a radio. Part of a harness.
7. The automotive aftermarket wiring vendors invented a insulated crimp on terminal line long ago. Blade terminals, butt splices, ring tongue terminals, many others, but don't use any but those three if you must use crimped insulated terminals/splices. They are OK for most things. You can shrink sleeve over the opening if you want. An example use for a female insulated blade terminal is to attach to a built in male blade sticking out of a wiper motor, heater motor, lighter, horn. An example of a connector half with female uninsulated terminals in it, like the terminal in this post, is a headlight bulb.
8. You DO NOT use a insulated or uninsulated male and female blade or bullet terminal to connect two wire ends together. There is hardly ever a reason to do that . Run a new complete wire. It's cheap.
9. I got more but back to the specific question and task here: If a person is changing from generator or Delcotron to a 10si style alternator, like in a 12V conversion, you rip out and throw everything away in the trash. You get that connector with pigtail that I posted and you butt splice or solder splice it's tails to wires that are "other end" terminated according to how it is advised to do a three wire alternator. I have given, and others have given, much info on that on Stovebolt. It ends up just being two 14/16 ga wires and a 10ga to the alternator stud. If I missed the question, hit me again.
10. In the connector industry and in general, you can have male terminals/contacts in a female connector shell or male connector terminals in a female shell...and vise versa as Yogi would say....or male in male and female in female. The shell determines the connector's gender. The male terminal/contact is the cold side of the voltage (when disconnected, the male terminal won't shock you or short out)
The only terminal to use on a screw is a ring tongue terminal. There are certain eras of our trucks that have inner fender terminal blocks for headlight and turn signal lamp. Direct wire that stuff. Those are unprotected corrosion getters and voltage droppers and are totally unnecessary. Early automotive "engineers" were not really electrical types. Bad ideas were carried for too long. There are other bad ideas too , like little or no fuses. Cloth insulation, spade terminals, wire routing outside the frame rails.....
Some like the look of the old ways and materials of wiring. I support all those who feel compelled. It's OK if "new" original style components are used and modern insulated wire inside nostalgic insulation. It looks pretty nice. I am a TF and up guy and that kind of avoids a lot.
