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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Vincent on October 10, 2003, 11:51:50 AM

Title: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Vincent on October 10, 2003, 11:51:50 AM
I've recently got an A500Plus for nothing.  I opened it to have a look to see if it was the A500Plus and not an A500 (it was easier doing that than trying to find a spare PSu ;-) ).

The good news is that it is a Rev8A, the bad news is that the battery (a barrel lying on it's side) is a bit frothy at the left end (when looking from the front).

I remember there was a thread on here started by redrumloa on the subject of checking mobo batteries, but me only having an A500 and an A1200T I didn't need to check them (I use the 1200 all the time and would've noticed ;-) ).

I can't find that thread and need to know how and if I can remove the battery, clean the slightly frothy part of the mobo (doesn't look corroded, just frothy spillage), and generally get it sparkling again.

I'm not bothered about replacing the battery, as long as it works for games :-D

Cheers.

EDIT:  tBBoAHw A500+ picture (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/a500_68010_big.jpg) this is the same rev that I've got.  The resistor between the battery and U12 is wading in frothyness.
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Bodie_CI5 on October 10, 2003, 11:54:45 AM
Hi Vincent

Is the thread you were after?

Click Here (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4155)

Oh and this was given to me by someone at Amigaworld:

Click Here (http://www.starnet.com.au/davem/overclock/batt.html)
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Jope on October 10, 2003, 12:51:17 PM
Quote
I'm not bothered about replacing the battery, as long as it works for games


Well please consider at least removing it, unless you want the machine to die on you some day.. :-P
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: redrumloa on October 10, 2003, 12:56:08 PM
Yeah remove the offending beast! :-o
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Bodie_CI5 on October 10, 2003, 01:10:17 PM
"YES... GET RID OF IT!"

I'm sorry that's just my Monty Python Holy Grail coming through... I'll just back away now :-D .
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Vincent on October 10, 2003, 04:28:04 PM
I will get rid of it - I didn't really think about NOT removing the little bugger.  I just don't know how to do it.  Or what to use.  (I've never needed to do anything like this in my life)

I was just hoping that I didn't actually need to replace it.  Removing it and cleaning it are things I could do myself after a little bit of head scratching.  Replacing it it completely out of the question though.  I don't have a steady enough hand to hold the battery AND solder at the same time ;-)

I'll have a look at the Leaky Clock Batteries page and take it from there - the only really unfortunate thing is that I might not be able to get the offending thing removed until the start of the week :-(

@Bodie_C15

Yup that's the one, cheers :-D

I didn't have time to find it this morning - I had to go into the garden and dig up all the weeds :-x

Quote
"YES... GET RID OF IT!"

I'm sorry that's just my Monty Python Holy Grail coming through... I'll just back away now :-D .


:lol: I was just watching that the other week :-)
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Linchpin on October 10, 2003, 04:44:45 PM
Uho - I opened my old a500+ today coz i forgot it was my + and i sold the standard a500 and it has a battery and...

Fur! And blue Stuff! Arrgh! In a paniked rush...

Stuck a knife under it...

Popped it out! (No Solder Used)

And fair doos, it came out pretty clean..

and it still works :-)

heh heh

cant be arsed with a new one :-p

Slight hole in the mobo where it came out haha oh well everything is still working

disk drive
video
sound
mouse
joystick
memory expansion :-)
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Vincent on October 10, 2003, 05:44:42 PM
Quote

_LinchpiN_ wrote:
Fur! And blue Stuff! Arrgh! In a paniked rush...


Bummer.

Btw, my fur was white with a very slight tinge of yellow :-?

Quote
Stuck a knife under it...

Popped it out! (No Solder Used)

And fair doos, it came out pretty clean..


I might try that before desoldering anything :-)

Quote
and it still works :-)

heh heh

cant be arsed with a new one :-p


:-D

Quote
Slight hole in the mobo where it came out haha oh well everything is still working


Yeah, but who's gonna see that hole anyway? ;-)
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Bodie_CI5 on October 10, 2003, 05:45:54 PM
Quote

Vincent wrote:

@Bodie_C15

Yup that's the one, cheers :-D

I didn't have time to find it this morning - I had to go into the garden and dig up all the weeds :-x

Quote
"YES... GET RID OF IT!"

I'm sorry that's just my Monty Python Holy Grail coming through... I'll just back away now :-D .


:lol: I was just watching that the other week :-)


It's cool man.. no probs, glad a tool like myself could help.

But that film man... I swear it r0x40rz!
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Linchpin on October 10, 2003, 05:57:54 PM
Problem is the hole has damaged a run (well damaged the top of it anyway), so i think de-soldering is the way to go :-)
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Vincent on October 11, 2003, 01:20:07 PM
Quote

_LinchpiN_ wrote:
Problem is the hole has damaged a run (well damaged the top of it anyway), so i think de-soldering is the way to go :-)


Bummer, I was hoping to get away with it without attempting to use a soldering iron.  Ah well.

If you don't hear from me in a few days you know I'll have burnt down the house with the soldering iron :-P
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Vincent on October 16, 2003, 02:51:58 PM
Quote
_LinchpiN_ used brute force:

Stuck a knife under it...

Popped it out! (No Solder Used)


After getting my dad's soldering iron (a relic from the 70s ;-) ) and seeing how big the nib was I decided not to use that one :-)  I looked around the shops here and couldn't find anywhere that sold one! :-(

Went round to a mate's last night and borrowed theirs (a relic from the 80's :-P )

Took the 500+ apart and tried to de-solder the battery.  No matter what I did the little bugger wouldn't come off :-(

So I did what LinchpiN did (after liquidising as much solder as I could ;-) ) and voila - it came off at the frothy end (where it was only connected with one pin) :-D  A little jiggling and bending later the other side snapped off no problem at all :-)

There's another small problem though.  That little resistor that was wading in the froth has a very small amount of green stuff on the under side of the mobo :-(

It doesn't look too bad.  Once it's cleaned up a bit I'll have a good look and see if it needs replaced.  It might just need to be snipped at one end and replace that bit with a wire and it could be ok.

All in all it wasn't as bad a job as I thought :-)
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Linchpin on October 16, 2003, 03:11:17 PM
He did it... MYYYYYYYY WAYYYY :-)

hahaha!

Dont recommend it tho! But those batteries aint soldered on much..
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Vincent on October 16, 2003, 03:51:24 PM
Quote

_LinchpiN_ wrote:
He did it... MYYYYYYYY WAYYYY :-)



In the style of Sid Vicious? :-D

Quote
Dont recommend it tho! But those batteries aint soldered on much..


As long as you desolder it a bit it *could* be ok to break it off.  The metal seems to be stuck firmly to the board even without the solder being there.

Then again maybe I was lucky with it.

Don't try this at home kids! :-D

(And don't blame me if you do ;-) )
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Linchpin on October 16, 2003, 04:16:09 PM
Haha! I never used no damm soldering iron - But yup i dont recommend it. I see some dead a500+ boards on the horizon...
Title: Re: A500Plus Battery is frothy :-o
Post by: Tomas on October 16, 2003, 05:25:20 PM
EDIT:
ah nm, you got it out  :-D