Encapsulating Coils

[alvaius]

Has anyone tried encapsulating standard style inductors (i.e. Solen Perfect Lay with or without Litz wire) with an electronics encapsulant. My thought here is to eliminate any potential vibration issues through magnetic effects or through sonic vibration.

Yes I know I can go foil, but I can encapsulate the Solens I have already for a few dollars each which are already tuned, which will be cheaper than going with foil inductors which may change the sound of something I already like.

Alvaius

 

[SY]

I've used a two-part filled silicone potting material for some of my coils. It was helpful for my home-wound ones, which weren't as tight as they might be. It seemed to have no effect on some good commercially wound inductors that I tried it with.

 

[fdegrove]

VIBES.

Hi,

Once your happy with your x-over you can actually encapsulate it entirely.
In that way the capicators won't sing along either.

Cheers,

 

[FrankDIY]

I think there is no advantage in doing that except the disadvantage of loosing the capacity to reuse the parts Some people are filling the PCB with epoxy glue.

 

[GRollins]

An older idea that got lost along the way is to use beeswax. Guitar pickups used to be done in this manner and there are those who claim that the difference in sound is audible when compared to epoxy, urethane, shellac, etc.
I have no opinion, myself; I haven't tried it. But I do keep bees, so I figured I'd put in a plug for the little critters.
One nice thing about wax is that you can 'unpot' things just by reheating them (beeswax has a higher melting point than paraffin--about 150 F). Not a realistic option with epoxy, for instance. You never know when you might want to take a few turns off a coil.

Grey