Is this something that I need to worry about? I never have before, but a couple of fellas I know INSIST on it.
What are y'all's thoughts?
You can use heat shrink or electric tape to provide some stress relief, I myself have never insulated a jack and have never had any problems with my pedals. If part of the jack touches the enclosure when the lid is on then you might want to use something but other than that I wouldnt be too worried ;)
I never do it.
Jacob
I throw heat shrink on EVERYTHING mainly because I love watching it shrink. It is like popping bubble wrap to me. I think it is more helpful to throw heatshrink on potentiometer solder terminals becuase they can possibly short to the bottom of the pcb or to your case. I also always throw heatshrink tubing on leds because if the negative lead touches the case you will blow the led (no current limiting resistor) and if the positive lead touches you will short your entire circuit out.
I use the heatshrink on LEDs, but else where I would be concerned about wanting to make changes later. A good example is the higher gain mod for the Aristocrat involves a different pot value. Or what if you need to fix a mistake? How easily can you get the heatshrink off of pot terminals? I have used electrical tape when things have looked too close for comfort.
I do like to watch the heatshrink in action though.
The heatshrink is really easy to get off pot terminals. I just run down it with an exacto and it peels right off.