Add an extra pin header to the motherboard!

What if you solder something to the mobo, say.. indication lights (like in this tutorial), then you attach the lights to the case with hot glue or super glue. Now, something else breaks and you have to dig in and fix it. You have two options... 1) Remove the glue thus potentially damaging the components. 2) De-solder the components from the motherboard thus potentially damaging the board or splashing solder. I have a remedy for that...

Add an extra pin header!
(It's easier than it sounds)

(sorry for the delay... the image host was down for a good part of the day)
Moving right along... I found and de-soldered a pin header from a dead, no longer working PC motherboard. The header had 8 slots with 7 pins. I only needed 6 for this particular project so I cut off what I didn't need. In the process, I broke an x-acto blade ::sad::


Next I soldered 3 pairs (6 wires) to the bottom of the pin header. I made note of what colors went to what pins. I covered the solder with heat shrink and before the heat shrink hardened completely, I positioned the wires at a right angle... or 90 degrees.


Then, I found where I wanted to put the pin header so I super glued it in place. I later gave it a good HOT layer of hot glue just to make sure it stayed.


I soldered the wires to where I wanted them. In this case, the pin header was for NIX connect, NIX activity and HDD activity.


I had 3 sets of 2 pin sockets with wires already attached. I wanted to make 1 big socket so I super glued the 3 together, then wrapped them tight in heat shrink.


Basically you're done.



I'm not going to post the rest of the build because maybe you have something different in mind with your pin header. In the future I will show you how to use the LPC holes with a pin header where there is isn't physically connected to your xbox circuitry.

I hope this helped you!
Till next time folks!
Josh