Yep it is confusing and crazy simple too and you are nearly there.
The left hand drawing 'I think it's gotta be wrong' is. It's a dead short across the heater supply for 12 volts or 6 volts! You will get smoke..
and i
DID
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The right hand one will work as drawn. .
awesome, thanks. i got that confirmed by bane, too on diystompboxes. he said just bend pin 4 or 5 to pin 9, and solder 'em together. ya wanna nip off pin 9 on the 6n2p side. that connects to an internal shield and can either be tied to cathode or ground, or as he suggested, just ignore it.
since pins 4/5 of the 12ac_ are in parallel, and the center tap is pin 9, that's all ya need to do inside a "socket saver". i'm not so sure about connecting pin 9 of the russian tube to cathode tho, i am assuming <probably wrongly> that if you're gonna do that, you want to make sure the cathode is grounded directly, not floating on an r/c network like ya usually find in guitar amps <in this case, a silkyn super 50 i picked up on ebay... cheap. had to have o-netics custom wind a replacement power transformer and i don't wanna smoke anything in it again, lol...>
i'm gonna try it in my princeton with just the pin 5 soldered to a nipped off pin 9 and not bother with the internal shield first and see if it will work well enough. i don't want to have to rewire the sockets, on the silkyn its pcb so it would be fairly inconvenient.
i'll try and post a couple pics of what i come up with later tonite when i get back up from my dungeon.
THANK YOU!! for the advice!
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Just bend pin 5 over and solder it to pin 9. Now the issue is you have the internal screen of the 6N2P connected to one side of the heater supply rather than ground. It actually might not be a problem, I cannot see on the Tone Snob link where he does? .
yeah, on the tone snob link, the second picture shows a 12ax7-6n2p adaptor on the right and the 6n2p- 12ax7 adaptor on the right. bancika said all ya need to do really is just connect pin 4 or 5 to pin 9. to me, in the pic he posted, he does indeed have pin 9 nipped off on the 6n2p side. i asked specifically, and he confirmed it.
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And you cannot 'cut off pin 9 from the base' or you lose the heater supply...
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you can if ya nip it off the tube socket on the top of the saver

in that case, pin 4 becomes one side of the heater, and <with pin 5 tied to the nipped off pin 9> pin 9 becomes the other side. there's about 3/4 of an inch of space to work with inside the socket saver. if ya don't nip it off, it connects the internal shield to the heater supply. i would imagine since its a shield it should be grounded, not connected to ac power. and since its grounded, apparently it can be ignored. its NOT a "functional" part of the tube, at least not a crucial one, apparently.
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This is the problem using the one 'tube saver' idea unfortunately. To fix it you have to add another 'saver' on top of this one. Now in this one you can cut off pin 9 and link pins 8 and 9 together....
the ones i got from tube depot have almost an inch of wiggl e room inside, so its fairly easy to deal with with just ONE socket saver. "medium" guage paper clips make good jumpers for inside the socket saver. just heat shrink everything and make sure no shorts are possible and i think its good to go... but let me TRY it first
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Far better to use a plug and socket solution, where 12AX7 = plug and 6n2p = socket.
12AX7 pins 1,2,3,4,6,7 and 8 go to 6n2p pins 1,2,3,4,6,7 and 8.
12AX7 pin 9 goes to 6n2p pin 5.
6n2p pin 9 links to 6n2p pin 8. (Cathode K2).
yeah, that was what i melted my valvecaster with

since it runs at 12v @2 amps, its got enough to REALLY run the 6n2p wayyyyyyyyy too hot. i mean, its running the heater twice as hot <i have a normal one in there without the pin redirection> as its supposed to be. the pedal casing gets pretty warm... but the higher current and voltage really brought the valvecaster to life tonally. much clearer, and much higher headroom. if ya don't mind the stench

you can kinda SMELL the thing ... probably from overheating it last nite

it runs about twice as hot <at least> as it did, and you can SEE the tube glowing, too

>
(please don't try this at home unless yer willing to deal with potential consequences, i am an insane idiot, sooo.....)
anyways, because i tried to run it like that at 12v instead of 6.3 v, i assume that's where the problem came from. when i try it in an actual amp, i'll bring it up slow on my variac and make sure nothing smokes.
i really appreciate the advice my friend, thank you!! more later
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sorry mate, didn't mean to be so frustrating.

thanks again!!!