Permanent sockets/solderable component standoffs

[Taylor]

Pretty bad title, sorry.

I have something where I want to use slide pots. They have PCB mount pins. I want to mount them on the solder/trace side of a single-sided PCB, so I need some way of lifting them up a bit off the board, so that the metal bodies of the slide pots don't make contact with traces or joints and short things out.

It occurred to me that I could use those single inline sockets, and solder the pins into the sockets, but I'm not sure how well this will work, and those sockets are kind of pricy for this use (I have about 20 slide pots in this circuit).

Does anyone know of some part designed for this purpose, or a decent way to hack it together?

[Minion]

Maybe try putting something on the bottom of the slide pot so that it doesn"t make contact with the board , like foam or anything non-conductive ...

You could also see if you can solder a couple single terminal blocks to the board and mount the Pot to them .....

or maybe extend the pins on the pot so it is above the board so it doesn"t make contact....

or maybe wire the pot off board .....


Cheers

[frank_p]

Did you try to search for "on board" females connectors like the ones in older computers for the ruban (multi-wire) bus wires ?  Might be a solution as there is a lot of surplus for those and there is a lot of spacing options when you get big ones.

[anchovie]

I don't if there's proper technical term for the part, but in amps I've seen skinny metal standoffs with a solder bucket in the top to keep power resistors that get warm away from the PCB.

[Taylor]

or maybe extend the pins on the pot so it is above the board so it doesn"t make contact....

How would you suggest I do this? I can't think of any reasonable way to extend the pins, but I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts. Remember this is 21 pots x 3 pins = 63 things to extend.

[Minion]

Maybe solder longer pins to the existing pins , Ive done it several times with salvaged capacitors that had tiny pins  ... I admit it would be impractical for to 21 pots this way , I was just throwing out suggestions .....

Cheers

[maarten]

Look for old IC sockets from junked electronics (PCs, TVs etc.), especially the larger ones (with up to 36 pins sometimes), and with the robust, round metal pin shaft in the socket. You can melt these out of the sockets with your solder iron when you flip the socket upside down and heat the metal pin tip. Position the socket on the edge of a piece of wood, so that when the pin warms up and you apply some force (not much) with your iron, the pin falls out of the socket (so don't melt all of the plastic or whatever it is). Another method you can use is grabbing the point of the pin with a pair of pliers and than push the pin out by force; position the pin you want to molest over a hole which you drill in a piece of wood for this. This works really fast once you know how to do it.

Maarten