Low-rent Battery Replacement
in [Hardware]
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From: Grinder on 16 Jan 2008 17:09 More fiddling with decrepit hardware that should just he snuck into the dumpster behind Denny's: DX2 66MHz machine that may well work, but I cannot get output from the onboard video--three beeps. I don't have and ISA video card to try, but suspect there is at least one other barrier in the way: the battery. A Varta 3.6V 60mAh cell was soldered on the board. It looks a bit oozy and cannot offer more than a half a volt. I'm going to try the system without any battery, and probably with a couple of AAAs in serial, but I have my doubts. Any ideas as to how I can reasonably and cheaply approximate the original cell? - - - - - - - - - Just a blast from the past for you guys: 1) It's an Epson PC running a custom Epson motherboard. 2) It has a Connor hard drive. 3) It has a 2x Mitsumi optical drive. 4) It uses an ISA riser card. 5) Power supply is a tiny smart-mouthed bird on a treadmill.
From: philo on 16 Jan 2008 18:22 "Grinder" <grinder(a)no.spam.maam.com> wrote in message news:Sgvjj.38456$Ux2.14375(a)attbi_s22... > More fiddling with decrepit hardware that should just he snuck into the > dumpster behind Denny's: > > DX2 66MHz machine that may well work, but I cannot get output from the > onboard video--three beeps. I don't have and ISA video card to try, but > suspect there is at least one other barrier in the way: the battery. > > A Varta 3.6V 60mAh cell was soldered on the board. It looks a bit oozy > and cannot offer more than a half a volt. I'm going to try the system > without any battery, and probably with a couple of AAAs in serial, but I > have my doubts. > > Any ideas as to how I can reasonably and cheaply approximate the > original cell? > > First off...a dead cmos battery generally will not prevent a machine from booting. The beeps may be due to ram problems... try it with just two sticks in different combinations... If you do manage to get it working... three aaa's in series will do the trick
From: Grinder on 16 Jan 2008 18:29 philo wrote: > "Grinder" <grinder(a)no.spam.maam.com> wrote in message > news:Sgvjj.38456$Ux2.14375(a)attbi_s22... >> More fiddling with decrepit hardware that should just he snuck into the >> dumpster behind Denny's: >> >> DX2 66MHz machine that may well work, but I cannot get output from the >> onboard video--three beeps. I don't have and ISA video card to try, but >> suspect there is at least one other barrier in the way: the battery. >> >> A Varta 3.6V 60mAh cell was soldered on the board. It looks a bit oozy >> and cannot offer more than a half a volt. I'm going to try the system >> without any battery, and probably with a couple of AAAs in serial, but I >> have my doubts. >> >> Any ideas as to how I can reasonably and cheaply approximate the >> original cell? >> >> > > > First off...a dead cmos battery generally will not prevent a machine from > booting. > > The beeps may be due to ram problems... > > try it with just two sticks in different combinations... Yeah, tried that. There are two sticks, two slots, so I tried all 6 permutations. > If you do manage to get it working... three aaa's in series will do the > trick
From: kony on 16 Jan 2008 21:04 On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:09:54 GMT, Grinder <grinder(a)no.spam.maam.com> wrote: >More fiddling with decrepit hardware that should just he snuck into the >dumpster behind Denny's: > >DX2 66MHz machine that may well work, but I cannot get output from the >onboard video--three beeps. I don't have and ISA video card to try, but >suspect there is at least one other barrier in the way: the battery. > >A Varta 3.6V 60mAh cell was soldered on the board. It looks a bit oozy >and cannot offer more than a half a volt. I'm going to try the system >without any battery, and probably with a couple of AAAs in serial, but I >have my doubts. > >Any ideas as to how I can reasonably and cheaply approximate the >original cell? How cheaply? Are you willing to desolder and resolder? Is there an add-on battery pack pin header? I vaguely recall (but would be more comfortable with you using a multimeter to make sure) there might be a pin header near it with a jumper across two of the pins. If there is you might try taking that jumper off (remembering where it was) to see if that disconnects the battery from the board. One option for the battery is a typical cordless phone, 3.6V NiCd battery pack. Of course you'd have to mount it externally, but for the time being if you just soldered a couple wires to the board you could plug them into such a battery pack if you happened to have one already so you'd know if the board can be coaxed into working before spending money on a battery for it. If the battery pack had a connector compatible with an existing battery pack pin header on the board, so much the better. In the interim, if the jumper I mentioned above isn't there or it's removal doesn't help, I'd just clip off the original battery as high up on the pins as possible (so you still have some pin to grab from the front while desoldering from the back). With the battery off, try it again... could be the battery is shorting out. As for the rest, is the system otherwise in the original configuration or have you added parts? I'd tackle the battery first but if that doesn't help, it seems quite possible it was thrown out due to failure and since systems of that era weren't particularly susceptible to capacitor failure I'd suspect general dirt or corrosion of contacts or power supply failure. That is, unless someone has already tried to *fix* it and then there's no telling what has been changed from it's original configuration like jumpers. I have to wonder if it's really worth getting working. Even if it posts there may be several other things wrong like unreading optical drive, bad sectors on hard drive. >- - - - - - - - - > >Just a blast from the past for you guys: > >1) It's an Epson PC running a custom Epson motherboard. > >2) It has a Connor hard drive. > >3) It has a 2x Mitsumi optical drive. > >4) It uses an ISA riser card. > >5) Power supply is a tiny smart-mouthed bird on a treadmill. Has the bird been fed recently? Does it seem friendly? It might be the problem, probe it with a meter.
From: VanguardLH on 17 Jan 2008 02:06
"Grinder" wrote in message news:Sgvjj.38456$Ux2.14375(a)attbi_s22... > A Varta 3.6V 60mAh cell was soldered on the board. It looks a bit > oozy and cannot offer more than a half a volt. I'm going to try the > system without any battery, and probably with a couple of AAAs in > serial, but I have my doubts. Are there leads from the battery that you could snip? If so, you could cut out the battery and then solder on wires to one of those square packs that has a velco strip to keep it in place inside: http://www.alancomputech.com/tl-5242-w.html Or you could get the 3-button battery blister: http://www.alancomputech.com/3-v70h.html (Never bought from this store. Found it using Froogle and searching on "CMOS battery 3.6V".) |