Sovtek 2A3 tubes - polarity?

[lmalinofsky]

Two of the prongs on each of my Sovtek 2A3 tubes are larger and two are smaller.  The socket holes however do not appear to be of different sizes.  The pictures in the manual don't seem to clarify much-- it's hard to tell, but it LOOKS like two maybe larger holes are towards the bottom in one picture, and towards the right in the other.  I am confused and want to be sure I get the right pin in the right socket and get the sockets oriented so that the right pin is in the same place for both.  Can someone clarify?  Would it matter if my sockets were rotated differently as long as I got (what look like) larger pins in larger holes?  (But then from the underside I'm thinking nothing would be in the right rotation, complicating construction.)  Thanks sincerely for any help,

Leon Malinofsky

[Grainger49]

I agree, the sockets look very much the same size.  But there is one orientation that the tube goes in without too much pressure.

Don't turn it on with the tube rotated improperly.  A couple of tries will tell you which orientation works.

[Doc B.]

The large pins go in the large holes, which have the 22 ohm resistors connected to them.

[lmalinofsky]

Thanks very much to both of you for this advice.

[astroimage2002]

 lmalinofsky,

Please give this thread a read if you are not clear on the tube socket rotation.

http://www.bottlehead.com/smf/index.php/topic,1142.0.html

Brian

[lmalinofsky]

Thanks sincerely, Brian, but the previous answers had already cleared me up.  Glad I'm not the first one to fumble this one.

Thanks again,

lwm