If your wire is too long it may interfere with the connector. Your wire strippers will probably leave you with too much wire, and the Molex sleeves and pins only need a small amount exposed. It is important to strip your wire and trim it properly. The second, outer flange (2) crimps around the cable jacket. The first, inner flange (1) is what you crimp the stripped wire to. The Molex sleeves and pins have two flanges that you need to crimp. ![]() There are several styles, but I find these work very well for me: I recommend a pair of automatic wire strippers. There are many ways to strip wires, and you’ll be doing it a lot when you’re building a pinball machine. If you're adding connectors to your devices, you may find it easier to cut and crimp all the wires first. I get my Molex connectors from McMaster-Carr, 2- and 3-pole 0.062 pins and sleeves and housings. I use a 3-pin connector for my solenoids (leaving the center pin empty) and a 2-pin connectors for my switches. Having two identical Molex connectors for a solenoid and a switch may cause some confusion. Make it a habit to use connectors with different numbers of pins (and sizes, potentially) for different parts. The crimping process for male and female pins and sleeves are the same. Molex connectors have a male and female plastic housing as well as male pins and female sleeves that fit inside the housing to complete the connector. There are also more expensive ratcheting crimpers that ensure the proper pressure is always applied to a crimp, and while they are very nice to use, they're certainly not necessary for what we're doing. As you squeeze the tool to make the crimp, this bump guides the two sides of the connectors to curl back on themselves and grab the wire you're crimping. If you look closely at the opening, you’ll see a heart-shaped bump. The Engineer PA series of crimpers are also very nice. I like the style below because it covers a wide range of sizes in one tool. There are many kinds of crimping tools available. Once soldered, a connector will make the process of swapping to a new playfield a much simpler one. You can certainly do this, but you should at least consider adding connectors to your devices. But if you’re building a machine at home in your garage, you may go through many iterations of your design, cutting multiple playfields as you refine your game, and you’ll find that swapping a playfield out is a big job which is only made bigger by having to de-solder or cut your wires to remove the devices. When you’re a big shop producing the same machines en masse, that’s the best way to go. have their wires soldered directly to them. Normally, playfield devices like flippers, slingshots, etc. How to crimp wire connectors used in pinball machines ¶Īt some point you’ll need to do some cable crimping, whether it’s wiring a new FAST board’s connectors, making a repair, or adding connectors to your playfield devices. ![]() Regardless - IDC plugs lasted 'how many' years before they became problematic? Yes the crimp on contacts tend to last longer but either type will most probably out last the machine being in your possession.FAST EMU Processor - FAST Serial Protocol Docs his response was 'smoke and mirrors' for obtaining that rating. I asked the Molex tech rep about this high current rating of an IDC plug. Interesting that Pancon no longer has the derating information on their website - you must now "contact factory" for it. Nothing more than specmanship.īoth vendors make high current plugs and, yes, the Pancon DOES have a higher rolloff than the Molex MarKK series. Both of them are derated based on number of contacts per connector and ambient temperature.īoth make headers that are 100% identical (same material, same plating, same plastic) - Molex has a more conservative spec on their datasheet allowing for a wider margin of safety whereas Pancon is a bit more optimistic and has a smaller margin. Molex MarKK connectors with crimp contacts are rated at 13 amps and Pancon CEH IDC contacts are rated at 12.5 amps. And in some equipment - ribbon cables aren't allowed either. But think of it this way - IDC type plugs (other than ribbon cables) are absolutely not allowed in high reliability equipment. This is more of a religious issue than a technical issue.
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