Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Argus on August 20, 2004, 02:23:30 AM
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I know there's been a lot of battery talk but I thought this might be a topic (er,...warning) of its own. The C= A501 board is the old way to add a battery backed-up clock in addition to an extra 512K RAM to the trusty old A500. How many of us have an old A500 lying around to play the occasional old game. Funny thing about the A501 though, the heat shield is actually soldered together so the pcb (and battery) is pretty much out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Big mistake! I was noticing last week that no matter what I did, the clock was not advancing in time past about June 14th of this year. Hmmm?? must be a battery problem, right? Well, after reading many of the recent posts, I finally desoldered the heat shield this morning only to find Mr. Fuzzy Ni-Cd had leaked acid all over the pcb (it was still wet!). We had a complete barrel rupture!..since June! I panicked.... it was time to do some ER work on the Amiga pronto. I did my best to clean up all of the acid with isopropyl alcohol and let it dry all day. After work I discovered that the acid had actually gotten underneath the silkscreen material and there was yet more acid (argghh!!). Finally, after more alcohol triage I thought it was time to see if the patient could be saved. I didn't have a new Ni-Cd laying around so I opted to put in a lithium coin battery via the Aminet hack. A bit of soldering and a few Hail Mary's later I switched the A500 back on and....the clock works again!!! Pfwew....The moral of the tale, don't be lazy like me and forget about the Ni-Cd barrel battery on the A501 board. And don't forget to properly dispose/recycle the old Ni-Cd battery.
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That's really good advice.
Although, come to think of it, I've got so many of those 501s (and clones from just about every OEM possible), that I'd almost welcome an excuse to dump some of 'em...
They aren't even worth enough sell on ebay...
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Hi Argus,
I liked your story, it was good reading. :-)
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FastRobPlus wrote:
That's really good advice.
Although, come to think of it, I've got so many of those 501s (and clones from just about every OEM possible), that I'd almost welcome an excuse to dump some of 'em...
They aren't even worth enough sell on ebay...
Frightening isn't it... I remember my parents buying an A501 back in 1990 for £90 (UKP). Ninety rubs for 512 KILObytes of memory... And I remember being impressed at how large a whole Megabyte was.
Within a year you could pick up a half meg expansion for under £40. Doh!