Tube Socket - Other Socket Styles

Other Socket Styles

There are many other socket types, of which a few are:

• Decal B10B base (IEC 67-I-41a) 10 pins in a 11.89 mm diameter circle, e.g. PFL200
• Magnoval B9D base (IEC 67-I-36a) 9 pins in a 17.45 mm diameter arc, e.g. PD500
• Neo Eightar base (IEC 67-I-31a) 8 pins in a 15.24 mm diameter circle
• 5-pin sub-miniature wire-ended B5A base (no socket used; e.g. EA76)

A remarkably wide variety of tube and similar sockets is listed and described, with some informal application notes, at a commercial site, Pacific T.V., including nuvistor, 8-pin subminiature, vidicon, reflex klystron, nine-pin octal-like, 10-pin miniature (two types), 11-pin sub-magnal, diheptal 14-pin, and many display tubes such as Nixies and vacuum fluorescent types (and even more). As well, each socket has a link to a clear, high-quality picture.

Some subminiature tubes with flexible wire leads all exiting in the same plane were connected by subminiature inline sockets.

Some low-power reflex klystrons such as the 2K25 and 2K45 had small-diameter rigid coaxial outputs parallel to octal base pins. To accommodate the coax, one contact was replaced by a clearance hole.

Vacuum tubes for high-power applications often required custom socket designs. A jumbo four-prong socket was used for various industrial tubes. A specialized 7-pin socket (Septar or B7A) with all pins in a circle with one pin wider than the others was used for transmitting tubes. Subminiature tubes with long wire leads, introduced in the 1950s, were often soldered directly to printed circuit boards. Sockets were made for early transistors, but quickly fell out of favor as transistor reliability became established. This also happened with early integrated circuits; IC sockets later became used only for devices that may need to be upgraded.