Hi I just picked up a GameCube off eBay using some of the money I made selling the C16 & Dragon 32 to Allen. The Cube has a battery backed up clock to keep the time/date and settings. The batteries are now over Twenty years old now and will be failing at best or at worst leaking which would destroy the PCB. The battery is soldered direct to the game controller sub assembly and in this case it wasn't loosing the settings but the clock wasn't keeping up to date. When I removed it the voltage was 0.24V instead of 3.3V. So the battery needed replacing which I did this morning but I fitted a battery holder so I can replace the battery easily in the future. Is this something people would want a guide to? so anyone else could have a go at. The Dreamcast also has a similar problem these days as well. I also think PS3's have batteries on the main board but I am not sure if they are rechargeable versions or not.
Don't have any plans to ever but a GameCube but that still sounds like a nice little mod to do, week done Richie. Any other retro projects on the go at the moment? I'm still loving the C16 but am using the 9pin joystick adaptor instead of the standard CBM joystick. That and the SD2IEC make for a great setup.
It's deffo something people should give thought to, as Richie says, leaking batteries are a nightmare, remember it's pure acid, it rots the board VERY quickly. Must admit, I don't remember seeing a battery on the PS3 motherboard, but then again, the one I have is a very early model and much of the board etc is totally different from later PS3's. Maybe they are using caps to hold charge. Might have a 2nd look. But yeah, a little pictorial of showing what to look for and maybe a link to the usual replacements, pretty sure they are almost universal. Nice one Richie, I've seen some pretty awful Amiga boards that had battery leak, just eats the VIA's, copper is it's favourite nosh as well as any metal.
Here are some photos of the process step by step. Had to do a bit of fettling to get the battery holder to fit flush but got there in the end. Time and date are held correctly now so should be good for another Twenty odd years. Need to look at the SD card solutions for the GameCube at some point.
Great, thorough and neat effective work there, Rich. Big thumbs up from this end. I've never seen a Gamecube oop n running but impressed by your job of work all the same. Another cool console and bit of retro kit saved for another couple of decades of arcade action. Great work, pal.
