Molex connectors - choosing which side should be male or female?

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Molex connectors - choosing which side should be male or female?

When putting in molex type connectors between a game board or power supply and a component (e.g. between board harness and control panel harness, board and coin door harness, board and monitor sync cables, power supply and monitor power, etc.), have operators over the years settled on a standard for which side should be male and which side should be female? Something like this:

Coming from (always male) ----> Going to (always female)

I find it all to be different between game to game, and get frustrated when swapping a chassis that (stroke of luck!) has the same 6 pin type connector for the sync connection between monitor and board edge connector, only to find that the ends are reversed!

Putting aside pin size and type of connector, I'm specifically just wondering about direction.
 
I always put "power" to female pins and "male" molex housing. This way, you can't really touch the live pins by accident. Most wiring is put together this way.

Why do you find some exceptions? Well, it is possible that that size housing was used more than once in the wiring harness and they switched the pins around so you couldn't plug the wrong ones together.
 
In general, if I were building a harness for a cabinet, I like to have the cabinet side of the harness connectors be female and the unit plugging into it be male.

Example: coin door itself would have a male connector and the cabinet harness for the coin door to plug into would be female. Same with the control panel.
 
all depends, if there a more than one with same number of pins in close proximity to each other, both are installed in opposite directions so they can't be plugged in incorrectly

in theory that is
 
I always put "power" to female pins and "male" molex housing. This way, you can't really touch the live pins by accident. Most wiring is put together this way.

I like this approach. I think I'll stick with this when re-pinning and putting in new connectors. From a look at some of my games, seems like more are done this way than not.
 
When putting in molex type connectors between a game board or power supply and a component (e.g. between board harness and control panel harness, board and coin door harness, board and monitor sync cables, power supply and monitor power, etc.), have operators over the years settled on a standard for which side should be male and which side should be female? Something like this:

Coming from (always male) ----> Going to (always female)

I find it all to be different between game to game, and get frustrated when swapping a chassis that (stroke of luck!) has the same 6 pin type connector for the sync connection between monitor and board edge connector, only to find that the ends are reversed!

Putting aside pin size and type of connector, I'm specifically just wondering about direction.

Molex connectors don't have male/female gender... they're classified as plugs and receptacles. Pins are pins(male) and sockets(female).

The powered side should always be receptacles (usually with sockets) since there's plastic between the contacts to keep them from shorting out if something falls on the connector. Plugs with (male) pins plug into the receptacles.
 
Molex connectors don't have male/female gender... they're classified as plugs and receptacles. Pins are pins(male) and sockets(female).

The powered side should always be receptacles (usually with sockets) since there's plastic between the contacts to keep them from shorting out if something falls on the connector. Plugs with (male) pins plug into the receptacles.
This is exactly what I do. I just remember "male metal for female plastic" so that it became a habit for me now. I tend to put the receptacle on the "source", and the plug on the other side obviously. I've only switched it up when, as was detailed earlier in the thread, I have two very similar connections in the same general area. However, I now use a Rit Dye and will dye the connections a color to differentiate them myself. That, and I try not to fill in all of the spaces in the connector. I leave a unique one "open" in each plug so that they can't physically fit together even if they are both 12-pin molex housings.
 
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