DC Jacks ... Isolation question .

[DavenPaget]

Meh , just discovered ALL of my jacks are non-isolated once you stick a plug inside ...
How would you isolate them ?

[theehman]

Which ones are you using?

[DavenPaget]

Which ones are you using?

[Mark Hammer]

Yep. made that mistake before myself.

The only real solution is to drill out a hole that's oversized and provides enough non-contact area around the collet, and use stiff-but-thi plastic washers on each side of the chassis wall.

That's the easy-but-risky way (risky because it depends on your aim and tightness of the nut.

A less risky way is to overdrill the hole, fill it up with Bondo or similar non-conductive machineable body filler to create an insulated chassis-wall segment.  Sand it down, and install the jack as expected.  Steve Daniels has a profusely illustrated  tutorial on this approach at the Small Bear site.

[slacker]

Here's another way of doing it http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=91786.msg784546#msg784546

[DavenPaget]

Here's another way of doing it http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=91786.msg784546#msg784546

I know ... Acrylic pieces !  Just have to be very careful about drilling it .

[therecordingart]

How many do you have?

When I was building all of my pedals tip + it didn't really bother me using non-isolated jacks.  Now that I've decided to stop being a non-conformist I use my bag of metal jacks for things other than pedal builds and in anything using a plastic enclosure. For example, I use the plastic radio shack enclosures for things like RG's test oscillator and other test equipment or doodads that I build.

[tempus]

You could use nylon shoulder washers like these. You'd need to figure out the right size; the ones I linked work for 1/4" jacks. Just drill your hole a little bigger to accommodate the new size.

[Perkla]

I was using the same ones before... but not i use this type of jacks and it works great

[digi2t]

Hi Dave,

Fiber insulating washers available from Switchcraft, SPC Technologies, and Duratool, to name a few.

But, since you'll be redrilling to install the washers, might as well go all the way and change out the jack completely. They're fairly cheap off EBay, and it'll solve your problem once and for all.

Cheers,
Dino

[DavenPaget]

How many do you have?

When I was building all of my pedals tip + it didn't really bother me using non-isolated jacks.  Now that I've decided to stop being a non-conformist I use my bag of metal jacks for things other than pedal builds and in anything using a plastic enclosure. For example, I use the plastic radio shack enclosures for things like RG's test oscillator and other test equipment or doodads that I build.

6. I think i'll use all these instead for my power supply .
I just added 10 of the plastic jacks for my HUGE tayda order .
Anyway , thank you guys for your "help" .
In the end i think it was too troublesome for pedals to use metal jacks since power supplies will be the ones that are not plug and forget .