I am having trouble finding replacement jacks (shielded banana ports/plugs/sockets, or what ever you wish to call them) for 2 different multi meters I have. The black COM port on one meter broke and the red primary (volt, ohm, etc …) broke on another. Both meters are made by different manufacturers but do use the same components plugs/ports. One meter is a Bosch/OTC, the other is a Fine Instrument Corporation/MAC Tools. The plugs/ports are female shielded 4mm banana plug sockets. They pass through the circuit board and are soldered in place with 2 tabs coming off their back end. There are small offset tabs on the side to fit through keyways in the circuit board. I need to order some replacements but have not been able to locate any. Please help! Thank you for your assistance. Attached are photos (only 3 photos as I am new to this platform and that’s all I’m allowed at this time)
Hello @clocked115,
Welcome to the DigiKey TechForum.
We have many different soldered Banana Jacks. Unfortunately, I am unable to locate a suitable replacement.
My intuition says these components are custom manufactured for the respective meters. They would have been designed to mate with the case to provide arc flash and blast safety protection.
Best wishes,
APDahlen
I was thinking a long the same lines originally, however I purchased these meters over a decade apart, and they are from 2 different manufacturers. The jacks are both mounted slightly different through the board and are using the offset tabs for partial support. The meter housing does play a roll in the jacks overall support and that is done differently in both meters. You can zoom in and see the opset tabs in the pictures I posted. Both meters are using the EXACT same jacks, with the same dimensions, with the same placement of the offset tabs. The Finest meter even modified the length and soldering of one of the electrical contact legs. This all leads me to believe these are a universal style jack likely used by many manufacturers.
It’s possible this is not custom-made, but looking over our options I have to agree with APDahlen, this doesn’t seem to be anything that we carry. I wasn’t able to find any solid leads to identify a viable part number for these, either.
Thank you @clocked115,
That could be, unfortunately I haven’t come across of these jacks outside of those already installed in the meters.
Perhaps other may have seen one: @rick_1976 @David_1528 @heke @PaulHutch
Sincerely,
Aaron
I have not had any luck identifying these either.
I did find an interesting hack to try to repair similar jacks here. If you have no luck elsewhere, you maybe could give it a shot as a last resort.
My searches failed too.
Since the late 70s nearly all <$200US handheld instruments are manufactured by a few contract manufacturers in the far east. AFAIK, this banana jack type is not used in any other product type. So I suspect the only way to get the jacks is to find a parts distributor over where they are made.
All my handheld instruments with broken banana jacks ended up with kludged on normal jacks, inline jacks on wires, or test leads directly soldered to the PCB. 