A couple questions before my first assembly.

Started by suncrush, May 05, 2015, 08:47:31 AM

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suncrush

Grounding
I know lots of people ground to the I/O jacks, but that's not quite going to work for me.  I have insulated jacks, and the folks at mammoth sprayed the inside of the box at the I/O jack holes when they were painting, so there's not really a good connection there anyway.  Can I just solder a ground line to a clean spot on the inside of the enclosure?  There's a good place available at the bottom of the box.

Stripboard
With 4 inputs from power, and 8 grounds, I think the best bet is to use a power input stripboard, and a ground stripboard.  What's the best way to hold the stripboard in place in the enclosure?  Epoxy?

DC Jack
I have a handy diagram on wiring the DC jack.  I see one of the ports is for soldering the positive lead of the battery adapter.  I'm not installing a battery.  Can I just ignore that connector?

bloxstompboxes

You might try soldering the gnd to the back of one of your pots. I see some people doing that. I never tried it but I doubt that the enclosure itself will take the solder if you tried soldering to it. Worth a try I guess.

Yes you can leave the terminal on the jack for the battery alone if you are not using one.

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suncrush

Yeah, I looked it up, and soldering to aluminum is a pain.  I could solder to the pot, or I could solder to the washer on the mounting screw for the tube socket.  I feel like the pot is a better plan.

amptramp

If you have a large-diameter knob, you might be able to add a countersunk screw under the skirt of the knob with star washers to bite into the chassis for a decent ground.  My Cort guitar used grounds to the back of the pots and an aluminum strip to connect all three pots together.  It went noisy after a while, so I added proper ground connections and now it sounds good.  (Page 16 on the guitar pictures thread.)

antonis

#4
Quote from: amptramp on May 05, 2015, 09:50:12 AM
add a countersunk screw under the skirt of the knob with star washers to bite into the chassis for a decent ground.
One of my favorite methods for a really "stiff" grounding..!! :icon_wink:
(which also applies to any surface with decals over the screw..)

It requires a little care - especially for thin wall enclosures - if you'll use a commercial drill bit because the bit's point angle may not be the same with screw's head chamfer angle and you'll have to use a bit size a little biger than screw's head outer diameter, e.g. a 5 - 5.5 mm bit  for a 4 mm screw head and also press & turn the screw, without fasten it,  a couple of times to form an even and plane mold for perfect contact...
(or use an apropriate fluted countersink cutter on a GOOD drill chuck..)
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GibsonGM

^  IMO, this is the best way to do it.  2nd best is to let the input jack ground to the chassis.  I don't get into soldering on the back of pots as they eventually seem to come loose, making that ground noisy or non-existent.   
Jacks, with a star washer, seem to not do that to me.  You are always turning the pot...the jack isn't handled as much...
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suncrush

Grounding to the LED bezel seems to be a reasonable solution.

bloxstompboxes

That's not a bad idea and not one I had heard of. As long as you use a star washer to really bite into the chassis and maybe a lock washer or some locktite to keep the nut from coming loose over time.

Floor-mat at the front entrance to my former place of employment. Oh... the irony.

suncrush

Thanks a bunch for the assist on the grounding.  Does anyone have any advice on securing the small bits of stripboard?

davent

Quote from: suncrush on May 05, 2015, 03:48:08 PM
Grounding to the LED bezel seems to be a reasonable solution.
Quote from: bloxstompboxes on May 05, 2015, 03:54:00 PM
That's not a bad idea and not one I had heard of. As long as you use a star washer to really bite into the chassis and maybe a lock washer or some locktite to keep the nut from coming loose over time.

And as long as the bezel is metal and allows you to really torque the nut down tight.

You might try a one of the 3M auto trim double sided foam tapes to hold the small piece of strip board to the enclosure.
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