I doubt that the one unbroken end of your SIMM socket would do the job, so you're better doing it the ugly, but simple way.
The peg that goes through the hole on the broken end is still mostly intact, so the SIMM seems to be secure in the socket. However, I'm not sure if the wires can easily be soldered to the pins on the underside of the SIMM while it is in the socket.
For a memory hack, this isn't even all that much of a kluge. What Capacity 30 pin SIMMs are you using? If they're 4MB, don't worry too much about it and give it a shot yourself, if larger, maybe it's better to ask for some help.
The SIMM is 1MB.
Removing the socket will be very simple, you can use desoldering braid and a standard soldering iron. A bulb type solder-sucker is a very small investment to make as well. Wick or suck the majority of the solder from all the socket's thru-hole connections. It may even come off without a struggle. If not, once the individual pins are pretty much loose, it's no big deal to use a pair of diagonal cutters or nippers to destroy the plastic socket in order to deal with each pin individually. At this point you should be able to get clean thru-holes for each of the 30 connections very easily.
Then it's just a question of soldering the wires onto a SIMM, practice on some keychain fobs: 256k SIMMs were > a dime a dozen and even 1MB SIMMs are nearly worthless today.
When you're confident, solder the wires to your larger SIMM, it's not like you can burn a leg off an IC in this process, edge connectors on PCBs are robust by comparison and the wide spacing almost ensures that you won't have any shorts. Test for them anyway.
Thread all thirty (two inch)wires through the matching holes in the PCB and then hot-glue the SIMM into the correct position. Soldering the wires to the underside of the Accelerator PCB will be a piece of cake, test for shorts and then nip the generous excess wire off after you're done.
I have never soldered anything before in my life, and I do not even own any of the tools I would need to do this. Do you really think this would be simple enough for someone with absolutely no experience like me? I recently watched thetechknight's videos where he repairs several SE/30 boards that someone severely failed to recap. What would prevent me from making these kinds of catastrophic errors?
Give this a try as your first hack. You'll feel awesome when it works and if it doesn't, then ship it to somebody for a fixer-upper. You've got nothing to lose but something you were ready to give away and a nice bit of experience to gain . . .
. . . along with a lot of confidence in yourself to boot! :approve:
Doing it myself isn't completely out of the question. I would like to eventually learn how to solder, but at this point, I don't even know what kind of iron or anything I would need to buy.
Are you certain that the damaged end is at pins 1, 2, and 3? I ask, because pins 28 & 29 are parity pins and not used in the Mac. Leaving just pin 30 which is a 5V pin and sort of redundant with the one at pin 1, although probably not a good idea to dispense with.
Yes, the damage is at pins 1, 2, and 3. The SIMM has pins 1 and 30 clearly labeled, and if I try the card as-is with the on-accelerator RAM enabled, I get a Sad Mac. The card does work with only the motherboard RAM, but it is considerably slower this way.
