Enclosure Grounding Techniques

[falco_femoralis]

What's your favorite non-audio jack related way to ground your enclosure?

The Keystone spring or the cliff audio jack surround thing? Or soldering a wire to one of the serrated washers that comes with the blue footswitch?

Any other options?

 

[vigilante398]

I've always thought the Keystone springs were neat, but I don't use them. I'm a grounded jack sleeve kind of guy.

 

[z2amiller]

I tried the keystone spring thing for a while but could never get good contact. Even without powdercoat overspray, aluminum forms a thin layer of nonconductive oxide very quickly and sanding/scraping/brass brushing the inside of the enclosure just leaves a sometimes-conductive mess of shavings.

I ended up with a ring terminal on the footswitch sandwiched under the star washer. I also got some chonky external-toothed star washers. I've added an extra through-hole on my footswitch daughterboard to connect the wire from the ring terminal but of course you can just bodge that wire to the footswitch ground terminal too.

Tightening those suckers down bites though the aluminum oxide layer (and even a little bit of powdercoat overspray) and the pressure keeps the oxide layer from forming.

I especially needed this when switching to the plastic 'innie' style jacks where you screw the nut/sleeve in from outside the enclosure so you can solder the audio jacks right to the main board.

 

[DDad]

What is the issue with just grounding via the jacks? Does that cause some kind of problem?

 

[falco_femoralis]

I tried the keystone spring thing for a while but could never get good contact. Even without powdercoat overspray, aluminum forms a thin layer of nonconductive oxide very quickly and sanding/scraping/brass brushing the inside of the enclosure just leaves a sometimes-conductive mess of shavings.

I ended up with a ring terminal on the footswitch sandwiched under the star washer. I also got some chonky external-toothed star washers. I've added an extra through-hole on my footswitch daughterboard to connect the wire from the ring terminal but of course you can just bodge that wire to the footswitch ground terminal too.

Tightening those suckers down bites though the aluminum oxide layer (and even a little bit of powdercoat overspray) and the pressure keeps the oxide layer from forming.

I especially needed this when switching to the plastic 'innie' style jacks where you screw the nut/sleeve in from outside the enclosure so you can solder the audio jacks right to the main board.

I don't like the springs either - they don't look that secure. I'm thinking it may be worth it to take the time to solder a wire to a ring terminal and sandwich the ring under a pot or the footswitch.

What is the issue with just grounding via the jacks? Does that cause some kind of problem?

I'm using the neutrik style jacks that have a plastic external nut and don't ground to chassis