[HarryWeatherford]

I recently built an extender for loctal tubes so I could access points with my scope and meter. I had to use an old faulty tube as the plug-in for the socket/tube under test. I purchased a nice socket base mounted to a pc board with access (numbered) terminal strips.  It worked good for a while until I lost solder connections under my epoxied base.    Now I have to rebuild it again. Has anyone seen a prebuilt loctal extender (breakout box) for sale?  I have been unable to find any male B8G plugs, that is why I sacrificed an old tube.  I also bought a handful of 8-pin loctal bases (ceramic) and the quality is absolutely garbage (you get what you pay for).  The pins do not have a good latch on them so they want to pull out with tube removal.  Fortunately, I tested it before going through the trouble of blindly using them as replacements.  Does anyone have any links where I can buy these items, otherwise I have to cut off another tube with my dremel and go through that tough soldering exercise.

[Arran]

I think part of the problem may be in soldering to the stubs of the original loctal tube pins, I can't remember the exact alloy but it was not copper. The connections inside the tube were spot welded to it, that isn't to say that you can't get solder to stick to it but it may need more heat, or a different flux. However you could make an adapter plug using stiff copper wire of the appropriate gauge, but it's a lot of work. I have no experience with tube sockets from the "middle kingdom" the last tube sockets I bought were some international octal ones from Ukraine, and they were Soviet/Russian copies of Amphenol top mounted sockets, that were well made.
Regards
Arran

[HarryWeatherford]

Thanks - it took a lot of heat and cleaning to get one spot of solder to stick to the posts. It was just a matter of time before it had a failure. I wanted to make a breakout box to access the pins of the converter (osc-mixer). Philco stuck that tube directly under the band switch and it's nearly impossible to access those pins, especially the way they wired components between the tube and the switch. I was hoping there was some breakout box out there - somewhere that I could purchase, plus a Loctal Socket Saver.

[HarryWeatherford]

I also tried flipping one of those cheap Loctal ceramic bases and inserted 'posts' down through it like the tube's bottom side. It was almost impossible for me to properly align the posts/pins.

[Arran]

I know what you mean, I have a handful of those test adapters, one or more for octal, one for 7 pin miniature, one for 9 pin miniature, and I think either a 6 or 7 pin UV based style, but not a loctal one. You may have to get a real loctal socket pulled from a junk chassis for at least half of this, that or figure out the octal or seven or nine pin mini equivalent of the tube used, if there is one. I was scratching my head about why someone would substitute the original U.S made sockets for those ones you bought, but someone on here did, I've never had any serious problems with molded Bakelite loctal sockets, I have with the wafer ones at times though, clean contacts in the sockets are everything, many have such a small contact area to grab the pins compared to octals and the old style tubes. Wafer sockets are iffy even on octals, and some are just complete junk. Brand Z and G.E like loctals for a time too, so you don't necessarily have to grab a Philco chassis to get spares.
Regards
Arran.

[DaleHCook]

I have socket extenders for every base I deal with except loctal. I've never seen them in the Philco parts catalogs.

Most of my socket extenders are Pomona, and I know that Vector, GC, and others sold them, but I have never seen a commercial loctal socket extender. I can't find any in my extensive RM/REM collection, so they may never have been made.

[Arran]

Dale;
Here I was thinking I just had an incomplete collection of those test adapter/socket extenders, which I have, but apparently the loctal was not one of them. Did they also make these for later tubes like Compactrons?
Regards
Arran

[DaleHCook]

Yes - I have a Pomona Compactron socket extender which I may never use, as well as a Pomona dekal (European) socket extender which I may never use. They came in a group with other Pomona socket extenders which I do use.