Mike's PCjr Page

Are there any tricks for repairing the I/O connector pins that you know about?

I've got a machine here where pins on the keyboard port are broken, both on the top and bottom row. Repairing the top row does not seem horrible, as you can push a new pin through, bend it, and solder it to the existing pin where it comes up from the motherboard. But the bottom row pin in not accessible without removing the entire connector, and that looks very painful.

It's not fatal on this machine because you can use the machine without a keyboard port. But I have other machines that need help, and I refuse to trash them over something as stupid as broken pins. (We've all broken them.) At worst case I'll get a desoldering station and do it correctly, but I'm looking for some tricks and work-arounds first before I go that far.


Mike

Surely Not Ideal, but worse case if this is just a play unit,
you can tack a ribbon cable on the bottom side of the board and have it fold out the back side with the
needed pins on a molex connector and just hang off the back side.

Piggybacking on Chuckphd53's suggestion, I would consider building a board with the PS/2 to PCjr circuit on it (like TexElec sells), hard-wire it, and then poke a cable through the grille and have a PS/2 jack dangle out the back.

If you want to actually fix it, you'll have to get some pin headers. I doubt that standard pin headers protrude enough, so I think you'll need to get female right angle pin headers and male pin headers (the regular length ones probably don't work, you'll need longer ones). Shove the male pins into the female end, and then super glue the carrier to the female shroud. These might be the appropriate length to work, and they're yellow so it will make the keyboard socket stand out more (I bet there are other colors too if you wanted to color code): https://www.amazon.com/Break-away-Heade ... B07842GC5F

Desoldering the existing (broken) pins is going to be a chore. I think the metal shroud over the connectors will desolder easily (otherwise you'll need tin snips or some side cutters you're willing to ruin), but I would probably use side-cutters to remove the pins that need replaced, and desolder the remaining guts from the bottom side.

One thing is certain, however: you are not going to find an exact match replacement connector and will have to improvise.