# Crooked Pins



## bcmatt (Aug 25, 2007)

I checked out my one and only EZ81 rectifier tube for a current 18 watt build and found this:
http://yeomansinstruments.blogspot.com/2008/12/those-pins-are-crooked.html
Anyways, I foolishly tried to straighten one of the pins and it broke off. Luckily it was pin #9 which is purely aesthetic. So what's the deal? Do I complain to the tubesandmore.com? When just ordering tubes I usually will try to buy from the tube store, but this was while ordering tonnes of other components too. Is there a simple fix? I'm afraid, but should I try to coerce the tube into the socket anyways?

Should I give up tube rectification altogether in favor of some diodes?


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

I can't get the pics to load or work but I've straightened tons of pins and never broken one. How bad where they bent??


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## bcmatt (Aug 25, 2007)

Frig, my pictures hardly ever work on this forum. It's the only place this happens to me.

I don't know how many classifications of bent there are but maybe I would say it falls between "kinda" and "quite"; definitely more than "sorta".

The pics are on this post of my blog:
http://yeomansinstruments.blogspot.com/2008/12/those-pins-are-crooked.html

The fact that one broke right off when I gently tried to straighten it, really scared me. I think I can pretty much line up the tips of the pins with the socket holes, but I wonder what horrible things might happen when I start pushing.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

Have you got a socket that isn't mounted? You can gently try and work it into that where you have more control over both sides. I don't know what to tell you, I've never had one break. I always use a small needlenose plier and just gently move them.


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## jv100k (Feb 29, 2008)

i have a pin straighting tool but what you can use is the end of a ball point pen case with the guts(ink cartridge) removed the end fits over nicely and if you go slow you will not have a problem.


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## bcmatt (Aug 25, 2007)

Thanks guys. You gave me the courage to give it a try. I coerced it into an unmounted socket and out again; and lost no more pins. I guess just that one pin really freaked me out, but I guess they aren't all that fragile. This rectifier should still work.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Yes, pin straighteners were once a common tool. Same deal as cooling fin comb's are today. 

While you can indeed straighten them up, do be careful, the metal the pins are made of can separate from the glass, and can suffer fatigue rapidly (hence your pin breakage). Though I've no recollection of ever counting it, there are only a few goes at straightening them before it becomes a cause lost to such failures. 

I have a frustrated memory once of trying to straighten a 10 or 12 pin tube once, for TV for a friend, and putting it in the die and pulling it out and the pins being still bent...in and out... until as a cluster all the dang pins stayed behind in the die kqoct 

Since then, I tend to go slow, and use straighteners if the tube wont insert and stay seated in a socket.


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