Sea Wolf - Edge connector/Header Pin conversion – What do to?

SchifWare

New member
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Location
Shelton, Connecticut
Sea Wolf - Edge connector/Header Pin conversion – What do to?

Hi gang.
-been forever since I've made some time for the hobby – time to get back into it! Work is way over-rated anyway, right?!?

Here's my puzzle – so looking for your opinions.

I have a Sea Wolf I've been tinkering with for a while.

I've replaced the 3 Amp edge connectors on the harness with solder eyelet edge connectors. Good move, right?
Well – it is until I picked-up a "working" boardset that has had all card edges 'upgraded' with .156 Molex header pins.
Both great ideas – but they obviously don't play nicely together – see the pics.

So – I'm thinking my options are:
1) Buy some finger boards and make adapters using the .156 Molex housing & wires.
-Plug my SW harness into the finger board side of the adapter and plug the Molex housing side into the header pins on the PCB
Pro: Easy to remove if I want to put an unadulterated boardset back in the cab
Con: More connections that can start to flake-out

2) Splice into the harness to make it "dual-headed" – able to use the standard PCB edge connector or .156 Molex header edge connector
Pro: Solid electrical connection
Con: Hacking into the harness is ugly

Neither option is great – so figured I'd like you folks chime-in or tell me I'm a bone-head and give me a better idea.

Many thanks!
-Chuck
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0748.jpg
    IMG_0748.jpg
    90.5 KB · Views: 53
  • IMG_0742.jpg
    IMG_0742.jpg
    98.2 KB · Views: 53
  • IMG_0738.jpg
    IMG_0738.jpg
    95 KB · Views: 44
Personally I'd restore the board to normal - axe the header (you'll want to clip each pin so they're easy to remove) and clean up the pads, and then go with your existing edge connector. Easy and allows you to swap in a different board, plus it is obviously closer to stock. Smart of you to replace your connectors though - the stock ones are total junk. I replaced all of mine and it's run flawlessly for over 2 years.

Awesome game, btw. I absolutely love mine.
 
Personally I'd restore the board to normal - axe the header (you'll want to clip each pin so they're easy to remove) and clean up the pads, and then go with your existing edge connector.


+1. Easy to do and should not take long to get it back to original. I always hate hack jobs like this. I think that it would have been more work to do all that hack work than changing out the original connector to begin with.

Brian
 
Wow – Many thanks for the quick replies! This forum rocks…

I knew you'd come up with a better solution – since I'm also a big fan of keeping things as original as possible.

My only concern is the shape that the original fingers might be in (which is probably why they were bypassed with the header-pins). In taking a look at the back-side of the PCB, you can see the typical wear/cut-through from the Amp connectors. So – any fear that once I get the header-pins off, there won't be enough "meat" for my standard edge-connector to grip onto – and I'm back to a cruddy connection?

-Glad to see some other SeaWolf fans out there. BTW – ShanMan – Awesome job on the "virtual video tour" of your game room!

Thanks again.
-Chuck
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0750.jpg
    IMG_0750.jpg
    102.8 KB · Views: 32
  • IMG_0751.jpg
    IMG_0751.jpg
    99.8 KB · Views: 24
  • IMG_0753.jpg
    IMG_0753.jpg
    96.6 KB · Views: 28
Back
Top Bottom