I wonder if someone has experienced a dead or dry battery yet?
Are they prone to leakage? Has anyone replaced it with a fresh one?

I mean those games are quite old (soon 20 years) , some of them still have the battery inside…

I am just curios.

As far as I know, none of my video games, especially any of my VB games, have had a backup battery leak. I don’t think it should happen at all, carts are made to last.

Why do you ask, have you experienced a problem?

segagamer99 schrieb:
As far as I know, none of my video games, especially any of my VB games, have had a backup battery leak. I don’t think it should happen at all, carts are made to last.

Why do you ask, have you experienced a problem?

I didn´t experience problems at all…I am just interested what the lifespan is. And I don´t believe that the batteries will last forever…if they leak, they destroy the chip and the board (thru corrosion, caused by the acids).

It know it happens to normal batteries (I have a collection of handhelds with corroded contacts due to leakage), and I know there is a Batch of Amiga System boards with a backup battery, which is known to leak and kill the circuitry…

So I thought it might happen to VB carts too one day…

The lifespans vary, I have NES and Sega Master System games from the late 80s that still save. And N64 games that are a little over a decade old that don’t. How they’re stored and just luck sometimes effects the lifespan.

Thx for the info!

How about the caps inside, do thay leak? Was a problem back in 1991 with Gamegear, as they used cheapo ones.

Made the screen faint or the sound stop working, only a complete replacement of all caps solved the problem (did that myself on the one I have). Is that an issue with Nintendo too?

I’ve had problems with dead SNES batteries, but never any leakage. I ended up buying a pile of sockets and CR2032 batteries so that I can make the SNES batteries replaceable… y’know, in 20 more years, when they’re dead again, haha.

I haven’t heard of any VB games with battery issues. I guess Warioland probably has a battery? Or did VB games save to some early version of flash? I imagine it’s battery-backed RAM of some variety, though…

I haven’t had any other consoles die due to bad caps, thankfully. I have a Game Gear, and last I tried it, it worked fine.

Wario Land has a backup battery. Galactic Pinball saves highscores, so I assume it uses a backup battery as well.

jrronimo schrieb:
I’ve had problems with dead SNES batteries, but never any leakage. I ended up buying a pile of sockets and CR2032 batteries so that I can make the SNES batteries replaceable… y’know, in 20 more years, when they’re dead again, haha.

I have never opened a VB cart, I only recall the pics on the site here…is there a place for sockets on each one of them (even those without savegame feature)?

This might be completely bullshit so don’t take my word for it, but I know a guy who’s specialized in importing hardware and software from Japan (nearly every X68000 in the area that I know of was bought from him), and he told me the quickest way to drain a save battery was to not use it for long periods of time, and that at least once every six months he’d fire up all his equipment to keep the batteries from dying early.

I have no idea if this is valid or not, but it would seem logical to me, seeing how a save battery usually drains a lot quicker when you don’t use it (the one on top of my head is the Neo Geo Pocket color one which is usually completely drained if you haven’t used it in a while).

Octaedre schrieb:
This might be completely bullshit so don’t take my word for it, but I know a guy who’s specialized in importing hardware and software from Japan (nearly every X68000 in the area that I know of was bought from him), and he told me the quickest way to drain a save battery was to not use it for long periods of time, and that at least once every six months he’d fire up all his equipment to keep the batteries from dying early.

I wouldn´t regard it as bullshit…sounds totally believable to me. Depending on the type of battery and/or quality the drain can be up to 20% in a month.

But I am not so much concerned about simple drain, I am more interested in a fail like leakage. But thanks anyway for that info 🙂

I have a few cartridges with failing batteries that don’t record saved data anymore, but as far as I know all of them work fine. I could open a couple if you want to see if there’s any leakage from the battery fluids but as far as I know I have never ever heard of such an occurrence with game cartridges’ batteries.

Maybe it can happen but if it does, it must be quite a rare phenomenon.

WoLfMaN wrote:

jrronimo schrieb:
I’ve had problems with dead SNES batteries, but never any leakage. I ended up buying a pile of sockets and CR2032 batteries so that I can make the SNES batteries replaceable… y’know, in 20 more years, when they’re dead again, haha.

I have never opened a VB cart, I only recall the pics on the site here…is there a place for sockets on each one of them (even those without savegame feature)?

I’ve also never opened a VB cart, but maybe I should try. Even if there is a spot for a battery, adding one might not do anything.

This video’s description is where I found the part for the socket itself. It definitely wouldn’t fit in a VB cart, though, due to thickness. You probably couldn’t socket a VB cart without destroying the housing.

jrronimo schrieb:
Even if there is a spot for a battery, adding one might not do anything.

Well, why wouldn´t they plan accordingly to save on money and have a unified board for all carts? From a manufacturers standpoint this would totally make sense, at least for the battery. Think of rentability in terms of lesser factory cost and usability in terms of being “upgradeable” for little to no cost in advance. Nothing unusual nowadays, even back then.

I admit that I don´t know about the programming, but who knows if the software co´s didn´t program a savegame feature into some games (that might have been dropped in hardware terms later on), that would only show up with a battery?

Here´s a link for the repair – from the dimensions of a GB cart it is likely that VB carts size is not much off in thickness, but have a look for yourself:

Definitely the way how I would approach a repair attempt!

Octaedre wrote:
This might be completely bullshit so don’t take my word for it, but I know a guy who’s specialized in importing hardware and software from Japan (nearly every X68000 in the area that I know of was bought from him), and he told me the quickest way to drain a save battery was to not use it for long periods of time, and that at least once every six months he’d fire up all his equipment to keep the batteries from dying early.

I have no idea if this is valid or not, but it would seem logical to me, seeing how a save battery usually drains a lot quicker when you don’t use it (the one on top of my head is the Neo Geo Pocket color one which is usually completely drained if you haven’t used it in a while).

This is total BS, the batteries used in older cartridges are Lithium batteries, they do not have the same problems as most “normal” batteries have. They do not slowly lose their charge due to inactivity as many other batteries do.
So, in the case of save batteries you will only shorten the life of the battery (probably so little that you won’t notice it, but it takes more charge out of the battery if you use the cartridge) by firing up your games each 6 months.

WoLfMaN wrote:

jrronimo schrieb:
Even if there is a spot for a battery, adding one might not do anything.

Well, why wouldn´t they plan accordingly to save on money and have a unified board for all carts? From a manufacturers standpoint this would totally make sense, at least for the battery. Think of rentability in terms of lesser factory cost and usability in terms of being “upgradeable” for little to no cost in advance. Nothing unusual nowadays, even back then.

I admit that I don´t know about the programming, but who knows if the software co´s didn´t program a savegame feature into some games (that might have been dropped in hardware terms later on), that would only show up with a battery?

Here´s a link for the repair – from the dimensions of a GB cart it is likely that VB carts size is not much off in thickness, but have a look for yourself:

Definitely the way how I would approach a repair attempt!

I do not know if I understand you incorrectly, but since even the GBA games have been fitted with flash memory (the same kind of memory they use in SD cards, flash drives, etc.) so they no longer need to outfit cartridges with batteries. Not all GBA and N64 games have flash memory, but they started using flash back then for the first time and now they use it exclusively.
If you meant that they should have done it in the past, I agree, but understand the reason they did not.

I actually replaced such a battery in a GB game two months ago, a Pokemon game, the batteries die quite fast in those cartridges do to the use of a RTC which functions like a wristwatch basically, but then without the display 😉
It is quite doable, if you are careful and works well.

THOUGH: NEVER SOLDER ON THE BATTERY DIRECTLY, NEVERRRRRR!!!!
It will most likely explode with consequences you do not want to think about.
If you solder a battery with clips on it, be careful not to warm up the clips too long, as the same effect might happen, be warned as this is a very serious danger!

WoLfMaN wrote:

jrronimo schrieb:
Even if there is a spot for a battery, adding one might not do anything.

Well, why wouldn´t they plan accordingly to save on money and have a unified board for all carts? From a manufacturers standpoint this would totally make sense, at least for the battery. Think of rentability in terms of lesser factory cost and usability in terms of being “upgradeable” for little to no cost in advance. Nothing unusual nowadays, even back then.

I admit that I don´t know about the programming, but who knows if the software co´s didn´t program a savegame feature into some games (that might have been dropped in hardware terms later on), that would only show up with a battery?

I completely agree that the circuit board is probably the same for battery & non-battery carts; it does make sense. But I have a feeling that there wouldn’t be a way, programatically, to “detect” a battery. Or, even if there is, I doubt any games do it. Mario Clash might be a good one to try since it has a score, but I don’t think the score’s saved anywhere…?

Or maybe just adding a battery would cause the cart to “automatically” remember the score? The theory being that the battery would supply power to the cart’s memory and it would somehow persist between plays assuming the score variable isn’t just reinitialized each time…

…the more I type words the less confident I feel about this… haha.

jrronimo wrote:

WoLfMaN wrote:

jrronimo schrieb:
Even if there is a spot for a battery, adding one might not do anything.

Well, why wouldn´t they plan accordingly to save on money and have a unified board for all carts? From a manufacturers standpoint this would totally make sense, at least for the battery. Think of rentability in terms of lesser factory cost and usability in terms of being “upgradeable” for little to no cost in advance. Nothing unusual nowadays, even back then.

I admit that I don´t know about the programming, but who knows if the software co´s didn´t program a savegame feature into some games (that might have been dropped in hardware terms later on), that would only show up with a battery?

I completely agree that the circuit board is probably the same for battery & non-battery carts; it does make sense. But I have a feeling that there wouldn’t be a way, programatically, to “detect” a battery. Or, even if there is, I doubt any games do it. Mario Clash might be a good one to try since it has a score, but I don’t think the score’s saved anywhere…?

Or maybe just adding a battery would cause the cart to “automatically” remember the score? The theory being that the battery would supply power to the cart’s memory and it would somehow persist between plays assuming the score variable isn’t just reinitialized each time…

…the more I type words the less confident I feel about this… haha.

Ahhhh, this is what Wolfman was getting at, now I reread the post I get it, was a bit tired when I read it the first time.

I think this would be very plausible, if I had a Mario Clash cart I would have tested it, but I do not…

THOUGH: NEVER SOLDER ON THE BATTERY DIRECTLY, NEVERRRRRR!!!!
It will most likely explode with consequences you do not want to think about.
If you solder a battery with clips on it, be careful not to warm up the clips too long, as the same effect might happen, be warned as this is a very serious danger!

Ok, I wasn´t aware of that. Since you can solder your own accupack (rc cars), which have little metal clips already soldered onto them. I thought that these batteries are suited for high temperatures within a short period….then how do they do that?

TheForce81 schrieb:
I think this would be very plausible, if I had a Mario Clash cart I would have tested it, but I do not…

Well, give it a shot, since you´re the electronic specialist 😉
It mustn´t be a Mario Clash…what about Golf?

WoLfMaN wrote:

THOUGH: NEVER SOLDER ON THE BATTERY DIRECTLY, NEVERRRRRR!!!!
It will most likely explode with consequences you do not want to think about.
If you solder a battery with clips on it, be careful not to warm up the clips too long, as the same effect might happen, be warned as this is a very serious danger!

Ok, I wasn´t aware of that. Since you can solder your own accupack (rc cars), which have little metal clips already soldered onto them. I thought that these batteries are suited for high temperatures within a short period….then how do they do that?

Those clips are not soldered on, it is some sort of punch on technique used to get those clips on.
While those batteries can withstand somewhat higher temperatures, those temperatures will never reach the 200C or higher mark.
Also, you normally can and have to warm up those clips quite long to be able to solder it in the cars, the overhead heat will be evenly distributed over the large batteries so that they will not heat up that much, though it still is not a good idea to warm it up for too long as it is bad for battery life.
The small save battery does not have that much room to distribute its heat to, so you have to be extra careful with that.

Unfortunately, I do not have any games that can be used to try this method…. Otherwise I would have tried for sure!