Friday, May 12, 2023

Triple Shorting Link for Binding Posts

 What? I have been sorting out my bench power supplies lately and finding that several needed shorting links to connect one of the two outputs to ground. I had one but didn't know what they were called. Long story short I asked on the VETE Facebook group and found that Pomona at least calls them Shorting Links for Binding Posts. Here's the one I do have:



Anyway I CNC milled a few up as Pomona helpfully has a drawing in the datasheet. Made out of brass which isn't as nice as being nickel or gold plated but I had brass and a mill and no money earmarked for something that is easily substituted for with a piece of wire, so...




I whipped these out quickly and created a bit of a deburring nightmare but they work. The nice thing about the design is that they stay on one post and can be slid into engagement on the other.

I have a Tektronix power supply that needed a triple shorting link if I wanted to create + and - supplies at the same time. These single links don't work (I mean they do work but) as there's an offset if you stack two together on the ground terminal. So I designed a triple link, milled it and bent a little tab to make removal easy.





And that was this mornings little project. Look, I blogged again. Also I apparently have three power supplies on my bench now.