Anti static foam?

I've lived in Colorado since 1986 and in Wyoming before that. I have never had a "crazy amount of static"? Maybe your problem lies elsewhere. Just my .02 cents worth.

Maybe it's just me, but I sure the hell wouldn't be spraying foam inside my equipment. I can see the ad now... 9/10, Mint condition, perfect shape, well expect for the foam inside the unit :-)

Hi.
The foam should be the black type, not the blue stuff.
Yes it has to be insulated from wires and circuit boards.
I used thin cardboard, and plastic baggies.
Baggies for smaller bits. for full across the chassis, card (thin non corrugated cardboard) is great.
IF you can slid it under the circuit board, AND fit the shield then that is good too.
Though do NOT use plastic under the circuit board as an insulator, as the sharp solder points may pierce it. use a thin hard card type paper shield. (It may be too difficult to get the stuff under the circuit board, if it is hard to do, skip it. the main areas are the chips and around the chips)
The foam also MUST be grounded to the case.
Each separate baggie or layer of foam needs a ground wire to the chassis. Thin wire is perfectly OK for the ground wire. ((Basically if you do NOT ground them, the foam bits saturate, and reradiate the RFI anyway))

You want to cover the main chips most of all. if they lay flatter than the rest of the stuff, add a small layer just for the chip.

I fill the whole DAC chassis with foam.
One point is the item needs to run cool naturally, anyway. If it runs pretty hot.. this tweak is not such a good idea.

I bought 3 large 'industrial' sheets of antistatic foam, but for a start the 6" sheets sold by Radio Shack work great. I started using those, and only later went for the big sheets. Any thickness 1/8" is good as it fitss under the circuit board better, but any antistatic black foam up to 1/4" is fine.

It is pretty hard to do any sort of CD changer with the foam. So that is not a good item to do.
(I have tried)
A separate DAC is great to fill up.

For a Preamp it may be too much. I actually took the stuff back out of one of my preamps as it did not improve the sound. it only made it seem dull.

For Mofimadness: the foam is not for vibration or static.
It is to dampen and remove RFI generated inside digital components.
The items which generate the RFI, like chips, cross contaminate each other with the RFI. The idea of the antistatic foam is to remove the RFI as it is generated, suck it up and ground it to the chassis.
The sound from the unit becomes cleaner.

This tweak was written about by me before.
I think it is great. most who write about it never tried it, but plain scoff at it. No problem by me.
It originates from a brief column in Stereophile many years ago from a guy in Holland.
I first used it on an Adcom DA600 DAC. Then a used Adcom DA700 DAC.
I found my tweaked Adcom DA700 was the equal of the raved about Bryston Dac, which I wound up returning, as that $2,200 DAC as not better in any way i could work out, than my old DAC. (with $20,000 of ancillary equipment, it was not the rest of the system holding back the sound)

Liz...Sorry, I thought the OP was talking about the "spray" type foam. That would be messy.

Thanks Elizabeth :-)
I'm still a little confused about the install. I think I'll start with my dac; do I place a square piece of cardboard equal to the size of the dac o. Top of the board? Is it okay just resting thdre on top? And then just place the foam on top of the cardboard? Or is it better to have it form fitting and squished a little bit and placed against the cover? And how do I ground the baggies or foam to the chasis? If the foam is touching, and form fitted to, say the cover, would that ground the foam to the chasis?

Thanks for your help! I'm really trying to chase down the inexpensive tweaks now that I've got all the expensive ones out of the way ;-)
I'm going to purchase one of the croyed hubble outlets that you suggested in another thread too! Are the 20 amp versions okay even though it's going in a 15 amp outlet (?) as long as I don't hook anything rated at 20 amps into it?


Mofi, I'm suprised you haven't encountered static in the dry cold climate of Colorado. Everyone I know has crazy smounts of static in there homes, shoot, even in our cars. I've gotten out of a car and shocked myself so bad that it felt like someone pricked my finger with a needle!

And I did think that anti static foam was for static, not rfi, but hey, if it helps the sound and it's under $50, why not give it a try. In my oppinion, Elizabeth is one of the most respected philes around here and if it works for her I'm game for giving it a try.