Received lamp holders, beginning to build lamps for the IBM 1130 control panel

 VERY SATISFIED WITH THE NYLON LAMP HOLDERS

3DHubs.com is the manufacturer of the nylon lamp holders I designed with Autocad Fusion 360. The holders arrived today and I am very pleased with the quality of the holders that were produced. The prototype I had built by Xometry.com, the fab house associated with Autocad, was rougher and they only offered black. The new white ones very good and totally satisfactory for the job they will do.

Counting the lap holders that arrived today

INSERTING PINS INTO THE HOLDERS

I had cut apart standard sized header strips, although with round rather than rectangular shape pins, to form the two pin segments that fit inside the holders and mate with the sockets on the PCB. They snap into the nylon holder with a satisfying click, producing very good alignment when plugged in. 

RECLAIMING BULBS BECAUSE NEW SUPPLY IS WEEK OR TWO AWAY

I bought a supply of the 2114 miniature wire lead incandescent bulbs from Genesis.com but will have to wait one to two more weeks to receive them, apparently. I placed the order on April 12 and according to the web site, in stock items ship within 24 hours unless noted at time of order. No notification either at order or the next day when the email status informed me they were 'in fulfillment'. 

As it was a week later with no indication they had been shipped, I called to speak with the customer service group. He told me they had not been in stock and were on order. I asked him to check on an estimate of arrival from their supplier and he indicated it would be a week from today. 

The delay is reasonable and understandable, the only complaint I would have is that nowhere on the order status or in the various emails I received from the company did they inform me these were not stocked and going to take two weeks before shipment. Lack of communications left me uncertain and concerned. 

To move ahead, I decided to begin removing the wire lead bulbs from the current holders, which are just the header strips without any support structure. I did daub some insulating goop on the leads to protect against shorts if the bulb twisted to bring the leads into contact. That makes the removal a bit messier but the process is simple - just multiplied by 150+ to pull them all off the existing headers. 

INSTALLING OLD BULBS IN THE NEW HOLDERS

The process of installing the bulb is slow, requiring care to position the bulb inside the arms of the nylon holder then manipulate the leads one by one into contact with the pin for soldering. It will take a couple of minutes per holder, thus about five hours in total to mount them all. 

FIRST TEST FIT TO CHECK ALIGNMENT ISSUES

I installed the first ten lamp holders with bulbs into spots spread across the PCB positions fairly evenly, then did a trial fit of the PCB with lamps into the honeycomb matrix. It seemed to slide into position very easily. I am becoming quite confident that this will provide the ease of insertion and removal I want to have a truly maintainable console light assembly.