Potting and Booting Push Button

What is the proper way to pot a panel mount momentary push button?

RT125 would not be a good fit here I would imagine, would silicone be a proper alternative?

I have machined barrel nuts made for the Otto P7-style pushbuttons. After soldering the wires to the pushbuttons, I fill the area inside the barrel nut and around the wire connections with silicon. After the silicon hardens, I slip a 90-deg right angle rubber boot over the connection. This is used on a button plate mounted on the steering wheel. I've been doing that for 10 years. My race car (which just had the silicon without the boot), never had a failure since I did it in 2003.

Great idea! Thank you David,

Do you have any reference photos of the style barrel nut you used? I think I may try this method as well.

We sell the pushbuttons with barrel nut on our webstore:

https://veracitydata.myshopify.com/search?type=product&q=barrel

I'm attaching a picture of just the machined nut installed before the wires are soldered.

Okay that makes more sense now. That is a great idea, will definitely look into buying these from you.

Just to confirm, you leave the barrel nut on there after potting with silicone and boot over the barrel nut. Correct?

Yes, the Barrel Nut replaces the thin nut supplied with the button switch. FYI, we also have the rubber boot I use. It's not listed on the webstore, but it's the same one that is supplied with the pressure term kits:

https://veracitydata.myshopify.com/products/pressure-sensor-term-kit?_pos=1&_sid=341b651f9&_ss=r

Of course, you can also just used adhesive lined heat shrink as well.

One tip I learnt the hard way...don't try to pot a switch/potentiometer that ISN'T sealed. The potting compound gets inside and ruins the component!