Almost impossible - but I'm working on that.

I bought up a ton of these when they went LTB - about 20K of both sizes.
25 pin versions are are hard to find but still available. Down to only about 100 of the left.
I also bought a ton of 28 pin plugs but they sold extremely fast. None left. Working on a 20K order now.

Tough connectors? Try those stinking edge connectors used by Gottlieb.

Fortunately, the 8/9, 10 and 20 pin plugs used on the rectifier boards mentioned above are easy to find.
For crimp tools - watch ebay for used HTR-2445A's. I bought one for about $20 that had a broken main spring - easy fix.
Just checked - today there are none: Either too expensive or missing the locators.

Ed (GPE)

Yep, I pay a lot more to have the custom 0.315" headers made (same length as Molex 22-28-4361).
The ones linked are normally 0.236" to 0.240" long. These shorter connectors cost far less but they're actually a bit too short and the connectors sometimes don't hold on too well.

What do you mean on this one?

This one really has my curiosity up.
See attached mugshot of a Molex 08-52-0125 -- 0.156" trifurcon style for 22-26AWG wire.
Can you indicate what would be off with those. Do keep in mind that Molex, being the penny pinching company they are, has closed US plants this past year and started shipping contacts made in India this year. So far, I haven't seen issues with contacts but have seen lots of broken and deformed headers coming out of India this year. The 08-52-0125 contact in this photo came from India.

08520125_Mugshots (resized).jpg

And while I'm playing with my camera. Attached is a completely related photo. This is from the bottom of my paper cup from a Disney World hotel. I was amazed that their soft drink dispensers were keeping track of refills with *paper* cups. Here's a photo of what was on the bottom.

DisneyWorldChippedCup (resized).jpg

Yep, just shadows. The 'brown' colors is from the light reflecting off the brown cabinets next to me.
Nobody else makes trifurcons other than Chinese knockoffs which I wouldn't touch based on the pot metal they use.
AMP makes a 0.156" series of very similar connectors. I plan on looking into those when I get a chance.

Yep. But the thing that amazes me is the amount of cost they went through to count the number of refills that cost them next to nothing. Cost to design the sensors for the cups (that was the cheap part), cost to design the sensors built into the bottom of the dispensor machines, cost for software to keep track, etc. Gotta be much more than it cost for the refills. All I can figure is this guarantees they can keep continue charging $8 (or what ever it was) for their drinks.

At the bar?

Looks like the stripping machine wasn't set up correctly.
Supposed to be centered with an overall cut-off width of 2.8mm max.

The ones in the picture that I posted were genuine Molex contacts -- 08-52-0125.
The ones in the picture that Mombo posted were also genuine Molex contacts -- 08-52-0072 (kind of, see below).
I know both of these two for a fact.

Molex didn't think I had a big enough volume to buy direct so they setup an account with their master distributor -- Waldom.
I buy presealed bags of 100 of the 08-52-0072 contacts from Waldom. These Waldom provided contacts originate from 08-52-0071 contacts. 08-52-0071 and 08-52-0072 contacts are identical except for one thing: 08-52-0071 comes on reels of 7000, 08-52-0072 come in boxes of 7000 (loose piece).
Waldom only buys full reels from Molex and has their own de-spooler for redistribution of contacts rather than buying loose piece from Molex.
I'll check my stock Monday and see what I have. If I have any like the photo posted by Mombo then I need to have a serious talk with Waldom (again).

John, the ones in your photo are 08-05-0301 Chinese "wannabees" intended for use with the double sided edge connectors as used by Gottlieb. They are not gold plated but are gold "flashed" --> very thin gold plating. For most uses that require gold, gold flash is good enough but against Gottlieb tin plated edge connectors - gold flash is not desired. I had a few of these contacts sent to me for evaluation. In a pinch, they will work but I wouldn't expect them to last as long as the originals. These wannabees have a softer base metal and tend to bend too easily. I believe I found the source for these... a Chinese company, of course. They have practically the entire Molex catalog on their website. I wouldn't trust Chinese contacts for anything as the base metal is never quite right -- either too flexible (bendable) or too rigid (breakable).

This is what we are up against. The despooler is nearly nuts on with the 2.72mm with each cut. Problem is - it is off centered. As clearly stated in note 5 - they are to be symetrical within half of the total tolerance or 0.04mm. These are 1.85mm across contact area (OK) but one side is trimmed nearly flush (about 0.04mm) with body and opposite side is extended out to just over 0.8mm. Opened two bags. First bag had *two* like this. Second bag - nearly half of them were like this. Most were not this bad. Worst ones such as the one shown do actually push the contact area in the opposite direction. Waldom/Molex will be contacted in the morning.

08520072_Defect (resized).jpg

No news from Waldom today. They forwarded the info to their QA so things may go quite for a few days. I'll update when I get more info.

Waldom is pretty good about fixing issues so far. This isn't my first issue with them - previously it had to do with their shipping dept. One piece of kraft paper tape cannot hold 50# boxes shut especially when going through UPS. Haven't seen an issue since. Hopefully they'll make good on this one as well.

Regarding the de-reelers - awesome to watch. I watched them de-reel end cut contacts such as 02-09-1119. Load the reel, hit start and the entire reel would be done in a few minutes. These 08-52-0072 contacts are side cut contacts so they take a considerably longer amount of time. But still pretty quick and sounded like an overgrown sewing machine. I think that the problem was due to the types of cuts we are seeing with these contacts -> they had the speed set too high and it wasn't centering properly on the contacts at that speed. Think Lucile Ball with the cake baking machine.

For a scale - I have an Adam Tech HCB123.

Moving the 08-52-0072 conversation to an existing conversation:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/molex-quality-has-gone-down-the-toilet