Painted Enclosure Question

[joelorigo]

Please tell me about this issue with painted aluminum enclosures possibly shorting. I have been spray painting and clear coating my enclosures and I guess I've been lucky because I haven't had an issue. Not that I think. What's the sign of a short? I gather it's a possible problem if the input and output jacks don't actually touch the bare enclosure? Please educate me

 

[Robert]

The issue is that with a painted or powdercoated enclosure is that the input/output jacks don't make good electrical contact with the aluminum enclosure.

If you run ground wires to each jack (like the PCBs are designed for) then you really don't have to worry about it, aside from RF noise.

This is mainly an issue when builders only run a ground wire to one of the jacks and depend on the enclosure for the connection to the other jack.

 

[Barry]

Just be sure if you paint after drilling to take a rat tail file and clean out the holes