These three photos show the final stages of the socket wiring for the adapter. With this stage of the project finally completed, there was no further need for the socket reference tags on the underside of the cover, so off they came.
An interesting realization came about while working on the wiring. The start point at the B9G socket was going to be the most challenging to solder. It was the closest point to the cable assembly, which sooner, or later, was going to be a challenge to work around, for getting wires into terminal holes and staying there, while also manouvering a soldering iron and the solder. I had decided to simply start with Pin 1 and work my way in sequence to Pin 9 and all should be OK. That worked for the first two pins before two things came to light. The first was the anticipated issue of the cable itself getting in the way. The second was my mindset.
The adapter I was modeling mine after was the Stark design that Bruce MacMillan is lucky enough to have in his collection. I had been following the wiring runs in the Stark so closely for the first two pin runs I lost sight of the fact this original Stark was a much narrower design than the case I was working with. I was using very short runs of wire between the sockets, which were adding to the problems of the loose ends staying put before soldering them in place and ease of access for the soldering iron. At that point, the valve lit and I became a bit more generous with the wiring runs. You can see that transition in the first two photos.
The third photo was taken after the cable assembly was finally positioned and all the continuity checks, within and between the four sockets, checked out absolutely correctly (several times). This last photo turned up an interesting point.
If you look at the reflection of the camera flash around the cover screw in the lower left corner, you can see a ‘cone of depression’ around the screw. When I spotted this and looked more closely at the reflections around all six cover screws, four in total showed this cone around them: a result of the screws being over tightened. I backed them off just until the cones disappeared and then checked the seam between the cover and case and it was all still snug, but at least the excess stress on the plastic cover was now gone.
The next step will be prepping the cable end to which the Octal Plug will be fitted.
David
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