Isolating IO jacks from chassis

[Adam M.]

How does everyone isolate the IO jacks from a conductive chassis? I have nylon washers for the front and back, but the threads still touch the hole thorugh the chassis. Any ideas?
-Adam

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

There are insulating sholder washers available.

[Vikash]

I use these these: http://buyfrom.heyco.co.uk/action_ca...966%7C0%7CS%29

[jackinnj]

Allied Electronics www.alliedelec.com and Newark Electronics www.newark.com between the two of them you should be able to find Abbatron, Neutrik, Switchcraft, etc. insulated RCA's, insulated phono etc. place "insulated washer" in their search engines.

[k3ys3r_soz3]

a good trick i used is to buy some teflon / ptfe plumbers tape and wrap the treads with it ( you will need to wrap it round several times) - this of course has added benefits that it will work as a lubricant on the thread making it easier to get a good tight lock.
also teflon/ptfe is a very good electrical insulator..

[carlmart]

Originally posted by k3ys3r_soz3
a good trick i used is to buy some teflon / ptfe plumbers tape and wrap the treads with it ( you will need to wrap it round several times) - this of course has added benefits that it will work as a lubricant on the thread making it easier to get a good tight lock.
also teflon/ptfe is a very good electrical insulator..

Great tip. But you should check with a DMM there's no continuity between chassis and jack body.


Carlos

[Adam M.]

I actually looked at the teflon tape when I was looking for electrical tape and though to myself, would this insulate the threads? GUess that answers my question, Time to get back to building.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Great tip. But you should check with a DMM there's no continuity between chassis and jack body.

Not such a great tip IMO.
Plumbers PTFE tape is rather thin and flexible:
Wrap it around the threads a few times, put the locking screw on and if the jack is of any decent quality you'll have screwed the nut straight through the tape already.

Even if it still insulates the jack from the chassis at that point, by the time you've inserted and disconnected your cable a few times the mere applied force will have eaten straight through the PTFE insulation.

The wisest thing to do is exactly as Bill Fitzpatrick suggested:
Get some proper shouldered insulation washers. They were made for the job and will save you a lot of headaches looking for groundloops.

Oh, they don't really need to be made out of PTFE either...much better in all respects but DA are the ones made out of polycarbonate; they'll stay put unlike that slippery PTFE stuff.


Cheers,