A502+ has original battery. Should I remove it?

[KingDaveRa]

I bought an A500 today, and it's in fantastic condition. It has an A502+ memory upgrade in it, and it seems to be working quite happily. I took the memory upgrade out and had a look at it, and it too seems to be in very good condition. But I'm worried that could change suddenly and ruin the board. I've seen mention of batteries being removed from earlier generation Amigas, so would it be prudent to remove it? It looks like it'll need cutting off, hence my asking.

Thanks in advance.

 

[scoobyatgb]

I would say take the battery out and if you need it put a new one in

 

[Nobby_UK]

I too bought an old A500 with half meg in the trapdoor
It also had a battery --- which charged up and looked good
But --- better safe than sorry --- I removed it.

I was considering attaching wires to it and
using it remotely on my A1200 ???

I saw new batteries from China going cheap
So cheap I was SUS...

 

[keitha]

I bought an A500 today, and it's in fantastic condition. It has an A502+ memory upgrade in it, and it seems to be working quite happily. I took the memory upgrade out and had a look at it, and it too seems to be in very good condition. But I'm worried that could change suddenly and ruin the board. I've seen mention of batteries being removed from earlier generation Amigas, so would it be prudent to remove it? It looks like it'll need cutting off, hence my asking.

Thanks in advance.

The good thing about 500 memory expansions is; If the battery leaks it wont damage the 500; just the memory expansion. If the A502+ is enclosed in shielding? I'd open it up, and visually check for leakage. I'm sure Amigakit sells the correct battery replacement.

 

[Bryce]

The good thing about 500 memory expansions is; If the battery leaks it wont damage the 500; just the memory expansion. If the A502+ is enclosed in shielding? I'd open it up, and visually check for leakage. I'm sure Amigakit sells the correct battery replacement.

Not so. I have had several A500s in for repair where the expansion battery leaked and destroyed the main board. Worst case was when the A500 was stored on its edge and the leaking gunk made it as far as the CPU.

Bryce.

 

[KingDaveRa]

I definitely need to get the battery out then, before it does go bad on me. I noticed the accelerator in my A1200 has a battery hiding under a little rubber cap which seems to have leaked, so that also needs removing and cleaning.

 

[AndyLandy]

YES!

Remove the battery ASAP! They really are ticking timebombs, and changes in environment are well-known for causing them to deteriorate, so if you've turfed something out of storage, putting it back into use could well cause the battery to die. Replacing the battery with a lithium coin battery is cheap and easy (even I can manage that level of soldering!)

 

[KingDaveRa]

Duly noted then. I'll get on to that this weekend before it's too late.

I dunno if I'm immediately worried about putting a replacement battery in though.

 

[AndyLandy]

Duly noted then. I'll get on to that this weekend before it's too late.

I dunno if I'm immediately worried about putting a replacement battery in though.

For sure, you could get by without ever bothering at all on an A500 trapdoor RAM card. Who cares if the Amiga doesn't know what time it is! It's only really of use if you have a hard disk and you care about creation and modification timestamps.

 

[KingDaveRa]

Yeah, it makes no difference on the A500. The A1200 I've got has a CF hard disk, and the battery on the accelerator card has leaked out, but it doesn't seem to have corroded anything, so I'll remove that too. Probably will put a replacement on that.