[HBR] Socket for BC-453 IF transformers?

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/28/06 7:27:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
shoppa_hbr at trailing-edge.com writes:


> The IF transformers in a BC-453 have 4 or 6 female pins on the bottom,
> and they mate with chassis-mount plugs that have 4 or 6 male pins.
> 
> Is there an "obvious" way to find/fabricate new chassis mount plugs?

K9WEK's method (add wires from the inside) is the best, IMHO. I use the 
following color code:

Red - B+
Blue - Plate
Green - Grid
Black -  Cold end of grid winding (ground or AVC line)

At least two wires from the IFT are going to tube pins anyway.

> 
> Off the top of my head I'm thinking about a PC board with 4 or 6 keystone
> (or maybe even Molex) pins in a matching pattern.
> 

The pins are small banana plugs. You're asking for work to fabricate them.


> The BC-453 chassis-mount plugs seem to be very securely mounted to
> the chassis (somehow integrated to lips stamped in the sheet metal?
> It doesn't look like there's a lot holding them in but there must be
> a lot?) The material is semi-transparent and may even be mica? It's
> a fabrication technique that I'm obviously not familiar with and if
> anyone cares to educate me, I'll gladly listen!

They're mica, held in crimp rings. Leave them alone.

*IF* you have a chopped-up receiver chassis, it is possible to cut out a 
piece of chassis that includes the plug and the threaded inserts to hold the 
mounting screws. 

I've done it. Lots of work even if you know what you're doing, and it's not 
really any better than K9WEK's method unless you change IFTs frequently. Worst 
of all, it hacks up an irreplaceable chassis unless you have one that is badly 
hacked up already.
> 
> The symmetry of the chassis sort of has me in a trance-like awe at
> the moment. The beauty has me convinced that it's some piece of
> alien technology - the 3x3 grid of plugs/sockets, the terminal strips
> with resistors in a square rotated 45 degrees at the center, the
> metal-can caps in a regular array around the edges, it's a masterpiece!

The Ancient Ones knew what they were doing, that's all. Anybody tells you 
that tubes are "primitive" just doesn't know.


> 
> And all those 3-48 screws!
> 

SAVE THEM!


> How many command sets were made? Any history of the plants that made them?
> 
> 

I don't know the plants or exact numbers, but something like a million were 
made. Many were destroyed in war or left behind as not worth bringing back.

Many that were surplussed wound up being hacked to pieces by hams for their 
parts, or for conversions, etc. That's why they're rare now.

The story is told around here of one surplus shop in the 1950s that would 
give away a free BC-453 with every purchase of $5 or more. They had stacks of 
'em. Many hams turned down the free '453 because they already had several...

(sigh)

73 de Jim, N2EY