Joint earth and metal box

[Gabriel Simoes]

Hello...

I've been trying to make a solder joint between the metal box (aliminium) and the circuit ground but it always get too fragile and goes away ....

Is that important to use the box as earth ? does it help making the humm get away ? how could I make it with a 30w solder iron ?

Thanks
Gabriel

[petemoore]

Screw down post or metal jacks.
 I use the metal jacks, when the sleeve is connected it connects to the box [if it's a conductive one which aluminum is]. This way it's only necessary to make one connection from the board to the input or output jack.
 Test ground points with DMM after connecting...

[Bernardduur]

Solder to the in or output jack. When that one is made of iron your box will be earthed.

Wow, quick reply and double post

[Gabriel Simoes]

I hard soldered all the ground points with wires because I cant make a solder joint to the box ...

the in and out jacks are fixed in a small palstic piece in the box so they are not conected to ground ... and this say I cannot connect the ground to the box ...

Thats what I want to know, when using metal boxes for minimizing the risk of hum, do we need to conect the ground points to the box or its used just to connect the ground from the in/out jacks without wires ??/

Gabriel =)

[Roberto]

the in and out jacks are fixed in a small palstic piece in the box so they are not conected to ground ... and this say I cannot connect the ground to the box ...

I use isolated jacks too.  I connect the aluminium box to ground in this way:

[Gabriel Simoes]

Nice idea roberto ... how could I forget !!! the back of the pots !!!!!!! as we do with musical instruments hehehe =)
Thanks for the idea

Gabriel

ps: where did you find those boxes ?? mine is a horrible one .... looks like I came from the jetsons !!!! =)

Gabriel

[Eric H]

Thats what I want to know, when using metal boxes for minimizing the risk of hum, do we need to conect the ground points to the box ??/

Gabriel =)

Since no one answered your question directly
Yes you should connect the box to ground  so the box becomes a shield.
Roberto's pics show one good way to do it.

-Eric

[petemoore]

I use a thick solid core wire, form a loop at one end [that I use to screw to the exposed metal, notice how Roberto sanded the contact area], and solder the regular hookup wire to that.
 They sell the little 'loop lugs' but I save time by forming them from solid core wire.

[Gabriel Simoes]

Isnt it better to make a sold joint between the ground and the back of any pot ? easy to solder and connect to the box the same way =)

[The Tone God]

For the record you cannot solder to aluminum alloy using traditional electronic soldering techniques. That is why you could never get your connection to stick. Usually the ground connection is made by connecting to a part that runs through the box touch raw metal (i.e. jack going through a hole that was drilled after finishing).

Andrew

[R.G.]

For the record you cannot solder to aluminum alloy using traditional electronic soldering techniques.

Correct.

There are techniques for soldering to aluminum, but they are way beyond the scope of this forum.