Electrically Insulate Project Box Holes

Insulate Your project box component holes and prevent short circuits with good old electrical tape!
In this instructable, The pictures will do most of the speaking.
Do you have an electronic project that requires the mounting of components of the outside of the Enclosure? Does this project box happen to be made of metal? Read on!

Step 1 Drill holes For Your Component

Drill holes for your component in your project box. Place your component in the hole and decide how important it is if they short circuit. Now you are ready to insulate your component holes.

Comments

[pfred2]

I use grommets. Even if I don't have the right size grommet they're easy enough to make out of a piece of rubber hose stuck onto a screw chucked into my mill and a hacksaw. Hmmm, possible Instructable in the making?

[rtty21]

do it! =D

[pfred2]

It is a good candidate as I believe it is a generally applicable technique. I last used it when I refurbished a bench grinder here and the original grommet was all sorts of dry rot cracked, mangled, and just generally not really there anymore. Was an odd size, the base housing was pretty thick, it was a pain, but I made it work!

I've used a similar method to retain E clips on bolt shafts as well. A hacksaw held onto something spinning in a chuck is an OK poor man's lathe often. But someone already has a use a drill press as a lathe Instructable up. I haven't read it, but have seen the blurb for it on the site often enough.

Now that I do a search for it there are no less than three different postings on the topic. No wonder I keep on seeing it.

I think my next Instructable I'll put up will be how to make a decent power supply not using a beat computer power supply. There aren't really any fantastic power supplies done on this site I've seen. The last supply I built is pretty nice.

[rtty21]

cool. I need to make an unregulated power supply mainly for driving motors and such. My 7805s heat up insanely fast when I try driving motors.

[pfred2]

Linear regulators heat up more the more voltage they have to drop. I think that is how they drop it in fact, by heating up! So the closer you can get the input to the minimum the less it should heat up. I think 78XXs need something like 1.5 volts over output to work. Should be in the datasheet someplace. So a 7805 supplied with 7 volts should run cooler than one you give 12 volts to.

A well heatsinked 7805P should be able to dissipate 15 watts and supply 1.5 amps of current. But a lot of times that isn't enough. My bench supply runs 10 amps adjustable current and at least 300 watts, 1.2-30 volts variable output.

Which is enough for my present project I am working on. Keep an eye on your current draw, especially if you go with an unregulated, unprotected source.

[rtty21]

Thanks! do you know of any voltage regulators that can handle larger currents? if so, I would really appreciate a link to one or the model number!

p.s. An instructable on how to make your bench power supply would be awesome! if you do make one, put in a schematic!

[pfred2]

Looking at an old selection guide I have on my desk here I see the LM338 goes to 5 amps and the LM396 to 10 amps. They're both 3 leaded regulators.

I couldn't imagine a power supply Instructable without a schematic I can give you that now. It is trickier than it looks though so if you build it make it carefully. Also an example of a finished circuit never hurts.

[MROHM]

(removed by author or community request)

[pfred2]

Well I'm old enough to have seen more than my fair share of failed electrical tape. Yeah it may be stuck OK today but a year from now? Probably not. I stay away from electrical tape as much as I can and use bushings, grommets, or heat shrink tubing wherever possible.

Million dollar idea: Someone ought to invent heat expand tubing to make custom grommets out of! Now would that be cool or what?

Hey rtty21 Invest in a step drill. By the looks of your holes in these pictures you need one. They're the only thing to use to drill holes into sheet material. Trust me you'll be happy you did. Your fingers may thank me someday too for not getting sliced when sheet gets caught on a twist drill! Ouch that can be nasty, like sticking your hand into a running fan.

[rtty21]

Thanks guys!