Breadboard socket for valve

B9A on breadboard.

To me, playing with vacuum tubes means a lot of trial and error to get where I would like to. Everything is laid on the desk and after a few weeks of fiddling I didn't want anymore to mix the hot soldering iron with the other equipment, cables and so on.

The solution would have been to make a socket so that the tube could be mounted on the solderless breadboard. Nothing easier!

I picked a B9A socket for PCB mount (from the lot that I bought) and soldered terminals that fit the solderless board. I used leftovers from through-hole component leads: they are long and flexible enough to reach the nearest hole.

Filament connection is left out.

Since the filament requires a good amount of current I lifted pins 4&5 and soldered a short length of thick cable. This also allows to have three pins on one side of the breadboard and four on the other side, without overlaps.