Socket Savers

Seems like these would be a good idea in the octals anyway. Thoughts?

Also, who's using what? I found these ...



I like the idea of being able to lock them into the socket. Perfect would be some that would use the original socket mounting screws to completely lock them to the chassis ...

They look pretty nice and I'm assuming they add a good inch to inch and a half height wise?

Ya ... looks like about an inch ... not a problem for the rectifier, but maybe a bit much for a KT120?  

I went ahead and ordered five ... I'll see what they look like when they get here. From past experience, that type of socket design eliminates a lot of the rocking I'm getting with the Celanex sockets provided with the kit.

I don't imagine I'll be doing a lot of swapping once I get this thing over the hump with birthing pains ... right now I've had the tubes out numerous times as I fiddle fart around with a metering circuit. I figure it to be lots easier to replace an extender socket if this goes on much longer ...

sKiZo - please keep us posted on your experience with these socket savers. I am also thinking of doing the same for a project. If you do not mind, time permitting, to upload a photo of the undershot when the socket savers are installed and secured.

Thank you

Note to self ... show BNR-1 picture of my bottom ...    

One other thing I figure might be advantagious would be getting the tubes higher off the chassis plate. I notice there's some bit of heat transference to the metal. Might also help keep the transformers a bit cooler as the heat from the tubes radiates sideways as well as up ...

In my case, my fingers are also quite close to the tubes when I'm tweaking the bias ...



You can see the bias pots are pretty close to the tubes. Haven't left any patch marks on the glass yet, but those peacocks look hungry for human flesh ...

How did those sockets work?

That's adding an unsoldered connection with a voltage drop, however miniscule.

I'll grant you the unsolder connections could cause a bit more resistance, but compared to a stock ST120, I already got a whole lot of that going on anyway. They also sit flush and tight to the chassis plate eliminating any mechanical action that could cause noise. Maybe a good trade off ... not planning to lose any sleep over it.

Decided against them for now ... They just look weird with the big bottles ... gotta have priorities, right?  



You can also see the problem with the KT120's ... the base is large enough that it sits on top of the socket mounting screws instead of flush to the chassis. If I'd known that before, I would have chamfered the holes and used flush mounting screws instead, but hindsight and all that ...

One other option might be to just glue a couple some small rubber pads to the tube bases, or even dremel a bit of the plastic to allow clearance for the screws if I'm feeling brave.

PS ... guy I got the socket savers from came up one short, so he threw in a couple 9 pins instead. I kinda like the look of that with the shorter 12AU7 between the 12BH7's ...



Not sure about the rectifier ... the saver would look good with a standard bottle, but is a bit much with that big Phillips, doncha think?

SKiZo,

I'm thinking of using socket savers as a way to locate the PCB on the Mark lll I'm doing beneath the top plate, but also keeping the small tubes above the plate. I looked for comments and found your posts regarding using these. It appears in your photo you did something similar.

Do you have more recent comments, or suggestions, about using these?

Thank you, tna