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Hi, welcome back to the Arcade Repair Tips Video Series. Today we're going to talk about
Molex connectors. I'm sure you might have heard that term before. What is a Molex? Is
it some outer space thing that was gifted to us from intergalactic gods?
Well, it's real simple. Molex is a brand of connector. We say Molex a lot of times when
it's not a Molex. In other words, you know how with Kleenex, you call every tissue a
Kleenex box? But there's only one Kleenex brand. There are many different types of connectors
but Molex is a brand of connector that was very very popular especially in the early
80s and even today in video games and a brand that we love to use. There are different sizes
of Molex. There are different kinds of Molex.
The ones we're going to talk about today are the .093 connectors that are very commonly
found, especially in what we're going to do today is wire up a Molex going to the monitor.
Now why do we use Molex? One of the main things we use Molex for or any type of connectors
so that we can disconnect and work on stuff. So if we want to take a monitor out, we don't
want to have to trace and unsolder wires or anything like that. We just basically unplug
it.
I've got an example here today. This is the base of a game, a couple of them that we've
been working on. As you can see, we've wired in the wires. The power going in, we've got
a fuse holder, isolation transformer. All that stuff we'll talk about later.
Coming off the isolation transformer, the power goes in the bottom like this or the
primary side. Comes out the secondary, or the top two right here. That's what we're
going to run power up to our monitor. So we have our two wires and they're stripped. I
would guess this is about a quarter of an inch. You do this enough, you just kind of
get an eye for how long it should be. Not too long, not too short. But I would say that
a quarter of an inch is just about right.
These are our Molex pins. Again, these are .093 size. They're also is a .100, .062, many
different sizes. A .093 to me is the easiest to work with, easiest to get in and out because
sometimes you have to what we call pop a Molex pin out. You want to be able to do that easy
and it's a good size. We use it 90% of the time.
This one right here, these two are females. And this would be a male. Of course the female
has a hole in the middle. The male is solid. And they actually join together. That's what
makes the connection. Up inside of these white, these would be the Molex pins and these are
Molex connectors. They're usually white. You'll see them in a lot of games. But look for it
coming right off of your monitor.
What we want to do first is we want to pin and the way that you want to do this is, this
is also a male Molex connector and this is the female because the male goes inside of
the female. Like such. Ok, you'll hear it snap. Anyway, so the one that does the going
into or the male end is the one that we want to put first. Ok, the male end will take the
female connector. So they're always working like that. I'm going to come around and give
you a little bit of a close up.
This is our crimping tool. Remember from the arcade toolbox that we bought the crimping
tool. Here is the female Molex and I'll give you a little story. The little story is about
the teepee and the indian. Teepees always go like this. You never see teepees like this.
They would hold a lot of water that way. It wouldn't work very well. So always think about
the little indian and the teepee because we always want his teepee like this, ok? So that's
the way I want to turn it.
So all I do is stick the wire, put the little indian inside the teepee. He's very nice,
very warm and cozy in there. He likes it. Then you got your crimpers. The teepee will
stay upright like we talked about. Teepees don't go upside down. You'll notice that there
are teeth on this. The middle one, you put the little indian inside the teepee, up inside
there all the way to the edge.
Ok, so we've got it right on the edge. Now we're just going to crimp it or smash it down
hard. Then I also like to turn mine sideways. Go into the first hole and push it a little,
squeeze it again. That's the patented Tim Double Squeeze Method and you can tell everybody
you saw that here. But that really makes a good tight connection.
The way it works is once the pin goes up inside of the connector, it flares out and that keeps
it up in there snug. So all you'll need to do is once you've got, again we've got the
male Molex. The female pin will go up inside of there and you'll hear it lock. It will
kind of make a clicking noise. A little bit of a snap. Now what's good to have around
is a tiny jeweler's screwdriver. Happ Controls makes one that's very handy to have. Sometimes
you can take that in there and do a little push. But you should hear a snap. So anyway,
there's a female end.
Now lets do a male, lets take it back. Lets say we messed up. We didn't get a good connection.
This is what we call an extraction tool. This needs to be part of your toolbox. This is
an extraction tool. They cost about $10-15. I know you can get them from Happ, Bob Roberts.
A lot of electronics stores. Fry's, stuff like that. If I messed up or if I put the
wrong wire in there, what you do is you come around to the front of it and push it in really
hard. And it will pop that tool back out. What it actually does is press down on that
flared part and allows the pin to easily slide out. So if you're going to repin some Molex,
say you don't like the connector that's in there. It's old. That's what you need one
of these extraction tools for, to take it out. Or you can just cut the wires.
Anyway, so we've got one female down. Then all we've got to do is crimp the other female.
We pop them in here then we put the males from the monitor wires on this side and then
that's how they're going to plug in.
Well, we're not going to go into a lot more details just on this Molex. I hope that you've
learned something today and by all means if you have any questions or comments, please
give us a call or an email. Thank you.