I wanted to share my method for replacing board headers. I’m sure others have their own techniques, but I’ve found this way to be safe. I’ve never removed a through hole eyelet with this technique. YMMV.

First, a picture of my patient. It’s a WPC89 driver board from a STTNG. I have random resets, so I’m bulletproofing the 5V circuit. It’s a bit of a shotgun approach, aka replace everything relative to 5V. I’ve been doing board work for 20 years, so I’m comfortable with this approach.

You’ll want to wear safety glasses when doing this. Header pins will go flying violently when you snip them off, as will plastic pieces when you remove the header plastic. I’m like every guy in the world and generally ignore safety notes. Trust me, you can take out an eye doing this. Take safety precautions!

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The first thing I do is use snippers to cut every pin flush with the connector. The snippers in the picture work great for this. Cut them as close to the connector as possible.

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Next, I use a pry tool to remove the plastic portion of the board header. In the past I used a thin screwdriver for this, but it will scar the surface of the board. It works, but it’s not pretty. Today I’m using some car stereo removal pry tools. It can be tough to get the tool under the plastic part of the header, but with some persistence, it’ll get in there.

As you can see, parts of the connector snapped off. I used the tool to pry the remaining plastic off of the header pins.

There may be a better tool to do this, as my car stereo removal tools are now basically gouged and deformed. But, they got the job done. And I’m too old to replace car stereos - I’d rather be fixing a machine.

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Now for the easy part. I heat each pin with my iron, one at a time, and use my snippers to pull the header pin out of the hole. They come out very easily. I couldn’t take pictures of this step, but it’s fairly obvious to anyone who can solder. After each pin is out, I used my solderpullt and some solder wick to clean up the front and back side of the board.

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Last but not least, solder the new header onto the board, clean up the rosin with some alcohol, and snip off the keying pin.

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Hopefully this helps someone. I’ve struggled to find a good way to do this over the years and am reluctant to admit that I’ve ruined a few boards in the past trying to remove headers. I’ve never ruined one using this method.

Do you heat the pin from the back of the board or front? I always assumed to do it that way you’re heating it from the back and pulling the pin from the front, which seems like it’d require holding the board vertically?

Just finished the dreaded GI headers. Whoever replaced them last time should put down the iron. What a mess. It looks good now though...

Nice. I never did it as you describe because I don’t have a board vice. I like the “hold over the edge” method.

Now where’s my drink....

Thanks for all of the feedback. I was sure that others have their methods too, and I’m glad to hear them. In the past I couldn’t find a thread dedicated to this, and removing headers can be scary. Hence this thread. How many of us have tried the “suck off the old solder and rock the header out in one piece” method? I know that’s what I did years ago, and you could be assured that there would be board damage.

I own a Hakko 808 and must have got a reject. I’ve tried to use it a half dozen times and it never got the job done. It’s been collecting dust for a long time now. Maybe there’s a rebuild kit somewhere that I can throw in it and give it another chance. Honestly through, my solderpullt seems to get it done, so I never put the time into figuring out why my 808 doesn’t work.

My 808 didn’t work straight out of the box. I let the solder melt, but there was no suction. I tried cleaning everything, new filters, etc. it just didn’t have any suction power. I assume something was bad in my pump. Maybe I’ll toy with it to see what’s wrong as everyone else seem to love theirs.

Last time I tried to use it the pump would not turn, it’d just hum. Time for a deeper dive into its guts I suppose...

I tried the method of heating the pin without snipping it, and pulling it through the plastic connector. I found that I had to exert a fair amount of force to get it out of the board and worried that I was going to damage the eyelet. I don’t think that it caused any damage, but still, I prefer my method of snipping each pin, breaking away the plastic, and then removing the pin. When I do that, the pin slides out of the board without force.

Again, to each their own. And I always appreciate,feedback as that’s how I learn and get better. Now where’s my drink...

Here’s what I did tonight. No board damage. Took my time of course, but happy with the results. The black connectors are new.

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Thanks for the tip, I just ordered one. Admittedly the most difficult part of the process is breaking away the plastic without gouging the board. I found that on the williams/bally headers, the plastic is very brittle (at least it was on my STTNG). I can use my snippers to get between the pins and snip the plastic. Often, almost always, the brittle plastic shatters away from the pins. Still though, the tool looks like it may make it even easier.

All of my STTNG headers are working great, minus the GI one. Someone did previous work there and obviously damaged a through hole. So I had to put on one jumper, which I'm ok with. I plan to keep my STTNG indefinitely, so I don't care if there's a jumper on the back of the board. I upgraded the 5VDC and 12VDC regulators to the EZSBC units and it's working great. The real test will be tonight with all of my machines on - which was causing (I assume) low line voltage and random resets on my STTNG and TZ. I'll be anxious to fire up the games tonight to see if the EZSBC regulators fix that problem. =)

Correct. From what I understand, they are switching regulators. And going waaaaaay back to my college days, I think (if I recall correctly) that a switching regulator (power supply) is more tolerant of lowered input voltage. So in theory, my house voltage can drop to 110VAC and the game won't reset. In theory.

That and the 5V regulator lets you adjust the output voltage. So I can set it to 5.1V if I want to help with resets. I don't think I'll need to as I've replaced the bridge/caps and headers. Next will be to re-pin the connectors. But I'm not sure if the caps, bridges, etc. will fix low input voltage resets (i.e., 110VAC house voltage). I'm hoping the EZSBC units do that the 5V one in particular, as the 12V circuit doesn't cause resets)

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I’ve always assumed Williams did things so that the games would have a set lifespan. They didn’t want games to last 20 years or they’d never sell more games. They did some crappy stuff like snap caps on the board, IDC connectors, etc...

With that being said, in theory the LM323 should be fine, right? If it worked from the factory, why would we have to adjust the voltage? Why does the load change with age? I always assume it’s failing connectors or maybe weak caps. Not sure. I guess the EZBSC is possibly masking another issue. I’m gonna replace all of the connectors anyhow, as I don’t want to mess with it for another 10 years.

While I’m rambling, I bulletproofed a black knight almost 20 years ago and sold it a year ago. It never gave me a problem over the entire time I owned it. But I totally rebuilt the power supply and all critical connectors. Trifurcon is your friend.

A little off topic, but I bought a bunch of parts for my hakko 808 tonight. I also took it apart for the first time in years and clearly the little tube that runs through the heater is plugged solid. I suppose that’s my first step to resurrecting it. Not sure if I can clean it without damaging the thing, it appears to be plugged end to end....

My original tip is tiny so I bought a few more sizes. I also bought some more replacement valves and filters. Anxious to get it running and try it for board work.

The tube on the end of the gun, left side of the picture.

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I finally had time to get back to my Hakko 808 tonight, attempting to clear the heater tube. I did as suggested and let it full heat up. The I used to small pushrod, and to my surprise, I cleared the tube fairly easily.

The tip below, on the other had, is plugged. I let it heat up fully and still couldn’t clear it. So I took a propane torch to it until it was glowing red hot. Still no dice, it won’t clear. Next a small drill bit. Nope. I give up on that tip. Luckily I have 3 more tips set to arrive this Thursday.

I need to find an old board to practice on, as I don’t want to have a WPC ram removal be must first test using the Hakko in 5 years...

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I bet the old betamax players are worth more than the hakko! I was shocked at how much VHS players command these days.

I think I have an old IGT motherboard somewhere, it may get sacrificed. I have a very nice System 7 CPU too, guess I won't experiment on that! I should put it up for sale, as (from what I remember) it's an unhacked original. And I don't foresee me ever owning another System 7 game...

Off topic, but I got my Hakko 808 parts today. Installed them and did some DCS board work. All I can say is wow. Capacitors and resistors just fall out of the board. Hard to believe I’ve been doing board work for 20 years without one.

I’m going to tackle WPC nvram soon. Hesitant to use the Hakko, I know that cutting the chip out, removing each lead and then sucking away the solder is safe. How much success do people have with Hakko chip removal?

I did some more board work tonight, replacing the headers on a 16 opto board. As most know, that board has 5 headers; 4 of them are .100”, and the other is .156”.

This time I used my Hakko 808 for the work. I used a A1003 tip for the .100” headers, and a A1396 tip for the .156” header.

Two of the .100” headers pulled out of the board easily. On the other two, I had to add a little solder to a few pins and the re-Hakko them. All in all it worked great. Zero board damage.

The .156” header wasn’t as easy. All pins looked clean, but the header wouldn’t come out. It took a bit of rocking and then it came free. Of course, in my past the rocking has led to damaged through holes. Fortunately tonight it did not damage the board. But based on this, I think my original method is less risky, albeit more time consuming.

I’m not knocking the Hakko. I can’t believe I’ve been using a solderpullt all these years. I did a capacitor tonight too and it just fell off the board, so the Hakko has its place. It seems to do great other than the pesky .156” headers.

I did J210on the cpu and used the chip puller to break away the plastic pieces of the header. Worked great. Thanks for the advice!