Converting old equipment to IEC power connectors

[jessearias]

The conversion is pretty strait forward if you have the room on the back of your equipment.

The issue is in the grounding of the 3 wire power cord. It could cause a ground loop if not properly bonded to the chassis. It depends how the manufacturer grounded the equipment in the first place.

The only reason I want to do this is that the cords on some of this old equipment are not the best (even when they were new) and now that they are worn, an upgrade to the current standard (IEC) would seem a logical move.

Any comments/concerns/ideas?

[tmazz]

The conversion is pretty strait forward if you have the room on the back of your equipment.

The issue is in the grounding of the 3 wire power cord. It could cause a ground loop if not properly bonded to the chassis. It depends how the manufacturer grounded the equipment in the first place.

The only reason I want to do this is that the cords on some of this old equipment are not the best (even when they were new) and now that they are worn, an upgrade to the current standard (IEC) would seem a logical move.

Any comments/concerns/ideas?

Give Scott at SG Custom Sound a call. He is the only person I let touch my equipment. And as a matter of fact he just put an IEC connector in my SP-9 last week.

http://www.sgcustomsound.com/

[satfrat]

Why would you add a ground to a component that was built not to have one? Adding an IEC connector as a way to upgrade the power cord isn't reason alone to add a ground to the equation. I have done this simple conversion to an old Sony XBR & a Sony DVD player I liked the subtle video improvement to each, w/o adding a ground connection.

Back in the day,Radio Shack had an awesome tool called The Nibbler for making the IEC hole. I found this one on Ebay.

Cheers,
Robin

[Folsom]

Neutrik PowerCON is a great DIY alternative. The holes are... holes, not squares. And they are pretty low noise due to shape.

[rollo]

Neutrik PowerCON is a great DIY alternative. The holes are... holes, not squares. And they are pretty low noise due to shape.

+1 for powercon.


charles