[R-390] relay base/plug!

[ToddRoberts2001 at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/17/2005 8:20:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
redmenaced at yahoo.com writes:
If you're going to take the key off from an octal
socket to use the spline repair method you should
remember that you might want to take off four of the
pins, too.  You don't need them and it will give you
more room to saw out the center pin, hacksaw, bottom
to top.
Jan Skirrow used to have the nice square relay boxes
for this job but I don't know if he has any more, we
may need to look for a supplier of those.


Just took another look at the octal sockets on the R-390A audio chassis. 
Looks like the easiest way to get the square relay plugs to fit would be to just 
take a miniature round or square file and carefully file out a new keyway in 
the audio chassis octal sockets at the 6 Oclock position. Probably wouldn't take 
ten minutes to do and no drilling, sawing or cutting off the keyway or 
removing the original octal sockets - just spend a few minutes with a small file! 
The square relay plug would only fit in the chassis one way so no worry about 
the plug going in the wrong way and this would safely align the new square 
plug-in filter cap assembly for the correct wiring to the socket.  This would be a 
"soft" mod and not even visible once the new square relay cap housings are 
plugged in! Also the original metal cans could still be plugged in if you paid 
attention to the keyway orientation. I checked the wiring to the sockets and if 
the new keyway was cut at the 6 Oclock position - if you plugged the original 
cans in the wrong way all the pins would end up in blank positions on the 
sockets so no worry about possibly shorting something out if you plugged the 
original cans back in the wrong way - it just wouldn't work and you would get no 
filtering probably just lots of hum but no fireworks to worry about! But if the 
original holder bracket is still on the original cans it would be a no-brainer 
to plug them back in correctly!  73 Todd WD4NGG