The bad battery thread

Anselm

Camel Slug
Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Posts
503
Ugh, my first MVS board and the battery is starting to corrode on the + side. Ordered a battery kit and I'll have it out in a week. Here's hoping nothing else is damaged...

I have a 6 slot enroute but I couldn't find any info on replacing that one. Does anyone have a link or info on that board?

~Anselm~
 

channelmaniac

Mr Neo Fix-it
15 Year Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2005
Posts
4,275
Use a 3.6v NiCd or NiMH cordless phone battery that is small enough to fit between the boards.

You can't use the same type of NiCd or NiMH barrel batteries on the 6 slot as the pins on the top board will short the battery out.
 

Pringles

n00b
Joined
May 15, 2010
Posts
40
Uggh... sorry for insanely noobish question but... Where is this battery? On the main board?
 

Anselm

Camel Slug
Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Posts
503
Does amperage matter? I bought a cell phone battery, 3.6v 350 mAh. It was the lowest amperage available. The salesman assured me extra amperage does not matter as long as the voltage is correct. He said the higher amperage just means it will take longer to charge and discharge. Any guru's here that can second his opinion? I would hate to put this on my 6 slot, only to cause more grief.

~Anselm~
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
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It's the capacity of the battery, the lower the number the shorter it holds the charge. The stock battery is only 50mAh so with your new battery it will hold it longer. That is, if you charge the battery, you have to play or leave the mobo on for so many hours to charge the battery.
 

Anselm

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Apr 22, 2010
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503
It's the capacity of the battery, the lower the number the shorter it holds the charge. The stock battery is only 50mAh so with your new battery it will hold it longer. That is, if you charge the battery, you have to play or leave the mobo on for so many hours to charge the battery.

Ok, thank you for the quick response. I'll be disassembling it through the week for cleaning and battery installation. Hopefully it works when I put it back together. :eek:

~Anselm~
 

Anselm

Camel Slug
Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Posts
503
Ok, give it to me straight. Am I screwed? Two questions:

1. Now that I have the battery out can I assume the corrosion will stop?
2. This is a 6 slot board. Does anyone know what kind of errors I can expect if the corrosion has eaten through the circuit runs that go under the battery? (There are a series of three runs that go under the battery.

I am not too worried about the giant circle of corrosion. It's just a grounding plain and it hasn't eaten all the way through. Any advice or condolences would be appreciated.

~Anselm~




 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
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THose 3 traces are easy to patch. Get a multimeter and do a continuity test to see if they are still making connection. And make sure you clean off the HD74LS.
 

Anselm

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Apr 22, 2010
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503
THose 3 traces are easy to patch. Get a multimeter and do a continuity test to see if they are still making connection. And make sure you clean off the HD74LS.

Already tested the runs. Had to twist a bit to get a good contact through the laminate but they all have continuity. I checked each direction (across the jump under the battery and then from each side to the next component).

I plan on re-flowing the solder on all surrounding components to clear off the corrosion. I'll make sure I hit that IC chip as well.

~Anselm~
 

Anselm

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Apr 22, 2010
Posts
503
Well, I swapped the battery and reassembled. Now all I can get to come up is the test pattern and associated test screens...


~Anselm~
 

Anselm

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Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Posts
503
Well, I swapped the battery and reassembled. Now all I can get to come up is the test pattern and associated test screens...


~Anselm~

Well....I'm an idiot. All 6 carts were in backwards. :blow_top:

Now I have to figure out why my 6 slot is only servicing one coin slot when the two slot worked for both, and why I don't have stereo sound. I'll start a new thread for that.


~Anselm~
 

Krusher

n00b
Joined
Feb 2, 2010
Posts
18
odd issues, and VOILA, now what lol!.

I had some ODD issues. I noticed the main 330 splash screen looked 1/2 pro half pixel level home drawn!.
Today tried to fire it up and the way it acts changes, goes from green screen, (See pic) then delays about 10 seconds and goes black!
I inspected board very carefully. And I have a feeling im out of luck or will need to send out for repair, been AGES since I trace jumped. Pics below
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=257&pictureid=2074
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=257&pictureid=2073
 

Krusher

n00b
Joined
Feb 2, 2010
Posts
18
interesting

interesting. Ok, I posted message above (Pending review right now)
And now Have removed the battery and cleaned the acid off.
there is continuity between the points I thought were eaten clean.
still acts funny. Will start a new thread in general tech area.

As of now it does appear removing the battery allowed it to post a little further.
and boots to a game albiet mighty scrambled. but I hear sound effects etc.

picture.php

picture.php

picture.php
 

Nuclear Neo

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Posts
78
I got a 6 slot neo geo i bought a few months ago, i havnt taken the motherboard out/nor looked at the battery or anything at all.... i would hate for it to leak acid all over the traces! I reckon it's time to take it out and change it... its quite dirty as well so give it a good clean, any tips when taking out a 6 slot motherboard? They are pretty big..

Can you just solder out the battery and leave it out? I dont care about not saving hiscores or any info/data... i just play it from time to time, so can you just take the battery out and turn it on and play it like normal, without the saving of hiscores? Any disadvantages apart from that when it comes to no battery in the MVS?

Cheers!

P.S i bought 7 faulty 1 slot motherboards from a guy, didnt pay much for them, good for parts i say, but the batteries have spewed acid near where the battery is located... it's a pitty, they had been stored in a shed for 4 ish years with batteries... all the traces are pretty eaten up, would be great to get atleast one of them working... I will upload some pictures of them tomorrow for you all to have a look at! Some give garbled graphics, some dont do anything at all.. those batteries are horrible things :(
 

shadows

Mature's Make-up Artist
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Posts
1,352
Can you just solder out the battery and leave it out? I dont care about not saving hiscores or any info/data... i just play it from time to time, so can you just take the battery out and turn it on and play it like normal, without the saving of hiscores? Any disadvantages apart from that when it comes to no battery in the MVS?

It will work fine without a battery in.
 

channelmaniac

Mr Neo Fix-it
15 Year Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2005
Posts
4,275
I had some ODD issues. I noticed the main 330 splash screen looked 1/2 pro half pixel level home drawn!.
Today tried to fire it up and the way it acts changes, goes from green screen, (See pic) then delays about 10 seconds and goes black!
I inspected board very carefully. And I have a feeling im out of luck or will need to send out for repair, been AGES since I trace jumped. Pics below
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=257&pictureid=2074
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=257&pictureid=2073

Those pics are of an MV1... When the battery leaks there it typically won't give the issues you describe. You have a dirty slot or a gouged trace on the bottom of the board.
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Posts
27,748
I had some ODD issues. I noticed the main 330 splash screen looked 1/2 pro half pixel level home drawn!.
Today tried to fire it up and the way it acts changes, goes from green screen, (See pic) then delays about 10 seconds and goes black!
I inspected board very carefully. And I have a feeling im out of luck or will need to send out for repair, been AGES since I trace jumped. Pics below
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=257&pictureid=2074
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=257&pictureid=2073

Can you try a higher meg game, like 250 or higher and post a pic?
 

Nuclear Neo

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Posts
78
Well i got rid of the battery in the bottom PCB of my 6 slot, haha i am so happy because it was starting to crystalise, leave it for a few weeks/months and it would probably start pouring out acid on the traces :O

I will pop a battery in it some other time maybe, but for now i am happy with playing it without the battery!

Is it possible to solder some wires on the neo geo board where the battery was originally sitting? and then get those wires soldered to a battery, that is AWAY from the PCB? i mean whats the difference, that way if it leaks in a couple of years it will leak on the arcade cabinet wood and not the motherboard. Is that possible?

Cheers - i will upload some photos some time of the battery taken out etc
 

Anselm

Camel Slug
Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Posts
503
Is it possible to solder some wires on the neo geo board where the battery was originally sitting? and then get those wires soldered to a battery, that is AWAY from the PCB? i mean whats the difference, that way if it leaks in a couple of years it will leak on the arcade cabinet wood and not the motherboard. Is that possible?

That's exactly what I did. While your at it install a connector so if you ever replace it again, you can just unplug and replace.

~Anselm~
 

Nuclear Neo

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Posts
78
That's exactly what I did. While your at it install a connector so if you ever replace it again, you can just unplug and replace.

~Anselm~

Cheers! Thanks for that, sounds like a good idea :)

Been playing it, and i had cleaned the board heaps it was really dirty from the last owner.... and to my amazement - the memory card slot now works! When i bought it the Memory card slot didnt work, it now does! So thats a + for the battery gone, and the memory card slot!
 

channelmaniac

Mr Neo Fix-it
15 Year Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2005
Posts
4,275
What NOT to do...

OK,

This is something you DO NOT want to do!

IMG_5803.jpg


This board was sent in for repairs... I won't ID the forum member that sent it to me even though he wasn't the one that installed it. This is a NON rechargeable lithium battery.

THIS is what is wrong with using that type of battery:

IMG_5804.jpg


See that 470 ohm resistor? It CHARGES the battery and should've been removed before the lithium battery was soldered in. It's amazing that battery didn't pop and leak its VERY corrosive fluids.
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Posts
27,748
That's jacked up man. People need to learn stuff about the charging system and knowing what battery types to use and when they CAN use them.

Good thing no one got hurt.
 

Egg Shen

n00b
Joined
Aug 11, 2010
Posts
4
Hi guys, I'm new here and after searching through posts for a few days with no success, I wondered if I could find some guidance. I recently purchased a MVS 2 slot conversion cab and noticed that some of the games seemed "buggy" the seller stated that he hadn't touched the games in four years and that they were most likely dirty. I did get most of the games to work, now once I got it home I cleaned the crap out of all of the games and the connectors on the board and still had issues. After reading I found this thread and decided to check my battery, sure enough it had leaked it was furry around the connectors. The board however looks ok. The splash screen is scrambled on all carts and the games all seem to have the same scramble problem, my test screens however are ok. Here are some pics, I fear the worst...

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sorry about the bad pic of the board, i'll try and get a better one. thanks guys this forum rocks.
 
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