Moving Pots from the PCB

[georgebrooke]

Hi,
One of my strategies to avoid cost of building chassis from scratch is to buy good quality "dead" equipment and gut the innards and replace with my project PCB/Power etc.
Lately I have been coming up against projects where various pots are expected to be mounted on the PCB. The pot positions pretty well never line up with the existing mounting positions in my "bought-in" chassis, so I have to mount them with extended wiring.
This generally looks quite messy. What I am looking for is some kind of a plug-in for the pot positions on the pcb and a similar plug onto the pot and hopefully I can make up a tidy small (shielded) wiring harness to connect the two.
I suspect this is a common problem and hopefully there are some common solutions, so can anyone with experience of this advise as to how I can make this tidy and look professional? All solutions considered.. except making my own chassis.

Thanks for the help

George

 

[dangus]

Heatshrink over the pot terminals looks tidier. To plug into the board... possibly individual header pins, and then heatshrink over the matching terminals on wires, if you can't fit an inline pin header. Sometimes crimp terminals can be obtained with higher pressure contacts, which would stay put if you're using them without the normal latching housing. The difficulty is that "official" crimp tools are expensive, but there are generic crimp tools for Dupont KF2510 terminals that are only $23 shipped on eBay. Search for SN-28B.

Sometimes you can salvage wire harnesses complete with crimp terminals from scrapped equipment and reuse them, if you lack the technology to crimp new terminals. I've done that more than once. Some places sell ribbon cables with individually housed crimp terminals, so you can tear off as many wires as you need, then glue the housings together to make whatever size connector is needed.

 

[Jsixis]

I am starting the same type of project. My 1st case will be a cassette remake and I have 2 amps that are next on the list. Wiring can be done neatly it just takes time and aggravation

 

[gmphadte]

You can fix an L shaped aluminium on the pcb and fix the pots on it according to the spacing needed.

Gajanan Phadte

 

[georgebrooke]

Thanks for the advice

Hi,
Well I certainly have the time.. and the aggravation to wire this up. The shrink-wrap would look tidier than what I was planning. What I was hoping for was that there would be standard headers available for both ends so that I can just provide tidy wiring.
My current plan is to make the headers by purchasing Veroboard or somesuch which can take the pins of the pots (standard spacing) .. these can be soldered onto the pots themselves. Then I can solder the wires onto pins on the Veroboard.
I guess the same mechanism should work, in reverse, on the PCB...use Veroboard with pins inserted and wires soldered to the board.

I still feel that there must be standard headers available to make this approach a bit less messy ..... so I guess it is off to the Mouser catalogues to see. I really would like to see this socketed so as to help maintenance.

Thanks for the help so far... any more ideas, suggestions or examples anyone?

George

 

[Jsixis]

1pc PCB for Alps RK09 Potentiometer Tin Spraying | eBay


if you look long enough someone always has a solution

 

[georgebrooke]

Thanks

That's is exactly what I was looking for... but I had no idea how to search for it. It looks like that if I do a tidy job with the wiring and shielding it is the way to go.

Thanks again

george

 

[AndrewT]

SIL, single in line, plugs and headers are available in both straight and right angle.
Buy strips of single and dual.
Cut to the number/length you require.

 

[Fast Eddie D]

1pc PCB for Alps RK09 Potentiometer Tin Spraying | eBay


if you look long enough someone always has a solution

It's not unusual to see something almost exactly like this in older equipment.

You can also make your own PC board to hold an array of pots and connect it to the main PC board with a salvaged harness and terminals (like ribbon cable). You can adapt premade Rat Shack boards (even veroboard) for this task- cut it, drill it, file it until it works for you. You can even put a few components on this board (capacitors etc) to free up space on your main board or just make it look tidier.

It's nice to have an assortment of heat shrink on hand. Auto parts stores and Menards sell various assortments. I also use plastic conduit intended for automotive wiring repairs and projects- the stuff you find under the hood of your car. I always have a box of it with various sizes and colors (mostly black though) since I work on cars a lot. It can really tidy up the wires inside your project and it provides some protection too. I almost always use it on any mains wiring inside the chassis; it provides an extra measure of protection from damage, shorts, and shock. Wrap the ends with electrical tape to keep the wire from working its way out.

Neatness really counts in my book.

 

[Jsixis]

I spend too much time searching I have been known to look at all 12,000 listings till ebay can no longer handle it and kicks me off.

 

[georgebrooke]

Retired

You've gotta be retired... you sound like me!

George