Story about ATX and HDD Molex terminal pins

Lo, people, I'm starting this thread because, on the web, you cant find enough information's about this topic, that I will talk about.

I want to make some case modding which will include swapping of Atx, Hdd power , Aux and the pins inside connectors. I have 7 power supplies in my LAB that I'm interested to mod, especially on 4 enermax supply's which are worst on this matter, all pins are wasted after only 2 and a half year.

As we all knows Atx connector housing is called Molex 39-01-2200, but you cant find any info about PINS inside.
Pins are called by the Molex standard Mini-fit Jr. 118" (3.0mm) in our case we will use AWG from 18-24. female pins, on some 16 AWG.

Best pins you can find on the market are from the Molex directly, like this :
http://www.molex.com/product/power/5556.html
Mini-Fit™ Crimp Terminal 5556
39-00-0055/ 39-00-0056 /Brass (Pre- plated Gold over Nickel) awg 18-24/
39-00-0163/ 39-00-0164 /Brass (Post- plated Gold over Nickel) awg 18-24/
39-00-0153/ 39-00-0154 /Phosphor Bronze (Pre-plated Gold over Nickel) awg 18-24/
39-00-0181/ 39-00-0182 /Phosphor Bronze (Post-plated Gold over Nickel) awg 18-24 /
39-00-0157 /Phosphor Bronze, pre Gold (Au) plated / AWG 16 - for some pins, should be good to swap default factory cable to larger diameter Like matching AWG 16
39-00-0185 /Phosphor Bronze, post Gold (Au) plated/ AWG 16 -

Expect life time is from 3-5 years if the pins are clear and without graphite corrosion (who lives in the big city knows about this very good, what is the graphite corrosion).

You can find Many manufactures and branders like: Molex, AMP(which was bought by tycoelectronics), AC Ryan Conetix(which is only branded Chinese goods) and you can find many Chinese stuff but without some standardized codes and without good quality.

You cant imagine how much problems are caused by the slackly or bad contacts on the ATX connectors, HDD too.


Next is HDD power Molex connector which is Molex 8981-04M/P, female pins inside are Molex 8980P, 5.08mm (.200") Pitch Disk Drive Power Connection System, Female Crimp Terminal, Molex doesn't produce better quality HDD pins than Phosphor Bronze without gold plating, here are the models from the Molex:

02-08-1201 Disk Drive Power Connection System, Female Crimp Terminal, Reel, Phosphor Bronze, AWG 14 - 20
02-08-1202 Disk Drive Power Connection System, Female Crimp Terminal, Bag, Phosphor Bronze, 14 - 20 AWG
02-08-1215 Disk Drive Power Connection System, Female Crimp Terminal, Reel, Brass, AWG 14 - 20
02-08-1216 Disk Driver Power Connection System, Female Crimp Terminal, Bag, Brass, AWG 14 -20

Or 61314-1 from AMP/ tycoelectronics

You can see that they have Phosphor Bronze, but without post or pre gold plating, in this case you can forget Molex connectors and go to some other solutions like Ac Ryan Gold plated HDD female pins, or you can go with some other Chinese Gold plated pins, but you cant find any info about time and force durability and the right material base used in pins production line, as you can find on the reputable manufacture sites like on Molex or AMP.

Best price that I found for now, for the Ac Ryan HDD gold plated pins is on the http://www.coolpc.com.au on discount price 20pcs is about 1.1$
And best price for Molex and Amp terminal pins are on the http://www.onlinecomponents.com, but I don't know are they any good, they have minimum order of 30$ and they don't have shipping price in the process, they will send you latter shipping cost.
AMP 61314-1 HDD $0.030
Molex 02-08-1201 HDD $0.092
Molex 39-00-0038 ATX $0.029
Molex 39-00-0185 ATX $0.37
Molex 39-00-0163 ATX $0.245
Molex 39-00-0181 ATX $0.32

All story is about female pins.
If you know any good price or if you have pins for the good price please tell me an others, where?
I want to know about other users experiences about this subject, what did you used, where did you bought it, where is the best price with the lowest shipping price.

I have special tool for tightening female HDD Molex pins and I have special German Kontakt spray 60 and 61, for professional corrosion removal. I have special chemical compound for gold cleaning, and I have micro rasp for gold, aluminum and copper (which is good but after short time all bad tings are back), but you cant fix it, if they are in bad shape. I'm talking Especially for the pins in the Enermax PS, they are gold plated, but they are worst quality on the market.
Bear in mind that I don't count brass or tin pins (without gold) at all, because they are not worth it at all.
I'm only counting in this story gold plated pins.