[Elecraft] (K3) loose front panel microphone jack

[Don Wilhelm]

Gary,

The shell of the microphone jack will normally rotate slightly, this is 
not a problem.
If you notice carefully, you will find that the pins are not loose, it 
is only the shell that moves.  It is due to the way the jack is made.  
Since Elecraft solders the mic jack pins to the board, but does not 
mechanically fasten the shell to the front panel metalwork, this 
condition becomes apparent.

Should you want to "fix" it, you can remove the left side panel, scrape 
away a bit of the solder masking right at the base of the mic jack shell 
and solder the shell to the exposed copper ground plane. It takes quite 
a bit of heat because both the mic jack shell and the ground plane will 
suck heat from the iron, so use a large tip on the soldering iron for 
best results.

The mic jack shell is already grounded with a wire wrapped around it, so 
the soldering I mentioned above is only to keep the shell of the mic 
jack from rotating - in other words, it is entirely unnecessary.

The "loose washer" problem that you refer to is on the headphone jack.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 7/11/2014 12:11 AM, Gary K9GS wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I noticed right before FD that my K3 front microphone jack is loose.  
> I'm aware of the "washer" problem but think that was in earlier K3s.  
> My K3 is ~ S/N 5400.
>
> So, two questions:
>
> 1)  How difficult is it to get to the mounting nut to tighten?  Is 
> this a 1/2 hour job or are we talking about setting aside a couple of 
> hours?  Any helpful hints?
>
> 2)  Any hints on how to prevent this from happening in the future? 
> Lock-tite??  Is there a recommended torque spec the factory uses?
>
> I rarely operate phone and when I do I usually use the rear jacks. But 
> I'd still like to get this fixed.
>