A while back, I mentioned I had run into a snag with my build due to the MOBO I wanted becoming unavailable. That turned into a blessing in disguise. When I went to the ASUS forum for the P7Z77-V WS board I had selected to replace the original board to check on which PCIe slots I should use for the cards I wanted to install, I was informed that the Z77 boards have only 24 PCIe lanes so I wouldn't have enough for what I wanted to do. The P9X79 WS was suggested and I decided on that one after a bit more research. That board, in addition to the usual 8 pin CPU power cable and the 24 pin power cable, also has a 4 pin Molex connector for additional power. I didn't want to run another cable from the PSU to that connector so I decided to splice into the 4 pin Molex connector I already had for a possible internal card reader. The only other connector on the cable feeding the Molex connector is a 15 pin SATA power connector for the optical drive so I have plenty of juice to spare and no worries of voltage drop since the cable is made from #14 wire.
This is what the cable looked like before I started surgery on it.
Below is what the cable looked like after I removed the original Molex connector body and pins and the wires leading to the added connector and crimped on the first pin. I didn't have much wire to work with on the original cable because I used nail glue (hey, it was handy) to keep the sleeving and shrink sleeving from sliding down the wire away from the connector so trying to get the crimper in there was a bit...ah...challenging.
This a side view of the same pin. The blue tape was to keep the wires together until I could get the pins crimped on (it kinda sorta worked).
When I first started making the cables for this case, I had the Divil's own time trying to hold onto the pin, keep the wire in place, and maneuver the crimper into place. It finally dawned on me that, instead of breaking the pin off the "tree" the pins come on, if I cut the tree between the pins, leaving a stub still attached to the pin, it would give me something to hold onto without my fat, little fingers getting in the way of the crimper. Once the pin was crimped, I could then break of the stub. This picture shows the bottom of the pin with the stub still attached.
Here is a shot of the cable with all the pins crimped on.
This shot shows the Molex connector replaced on the cable and the heat shrink and sleeve in place. I added a second shrink on top of the end of the shrink to reinforce it against the cables being pulled apart.
This is a different view showing the original Molex connector and the added cable and connector. You can also see my el cheapo (but still effective) crimper/stripper and the high tech heat shrink heating device (aka travel sized hair dryer).
Here is the newly modified cable stuffed back where it belongs.
