Placed 164 sockets on the backside of the PCB into which the lamps will be plugged

 REPLACEABLE INCANDESCENT LAMPS

Since incandescent bulbs have a short enough life that they need to be replaced as a routine matter, I designed this upgrade for the IBM 1130 to allow easy swaps when bulbs are dead. The bulbs I chose are T small wire lead style, which easily fit in the honeycomb matrix unlike the original IBM part that is press fitted into each cell. 

My board provides sockets for all the lamps on the rear side. With all the bulbs inserted into the sockets, they are steered into the honeycomb matrix while the board is pushed flat against the matrix. Replacing bulbs is simply a matter of pulling the whole board back, unplugging the bad lamp and inserting its replacement. 

SOCKETS BUILT WITH HEADER SOCKETS, BULBS ON HEADER STRIPS

I chose a very simple socketing system for the lamps, since they are wire lead type. I cut header strips into two position lengths, wrapped the bulb leads around the top of the pins and soldered them in place. The PCB has header sockets, also cut to two position size, into which the header segments are plugged. 

INSERTED ALL 164 SOCKETS ONTO THE BOARD

It was a tedious session this afternoon, where I cut apart socket strips into two position segments, hand placed them on the rear of the board and soldered them in place. Doesn't sound tedious until you realize this is 164 repeats of those steps. 

Rear of board, covering the right side of the 1130 panel

Rear of board, covering the left side of panel, with sockets installed

Right side of panel with machine status lights

Left side of panel showing the contents of six major registers