NEO GEO MVS battery

[Drakon]

okay so I really have no idea where to put this thread.  I recently purchased a neo geo MVS MV-1F arcade board (for fun).  Tomorrow I'm going to test it out on my friends arcade cabinet (yes I have some crazy friends).  While checking out the hardware on it I noticed that it has a nicd rechargable battery on the pcb.  Now I've heard horror stories of batteries like this leaking all over the pcb and eating through traces which I'm trying to avoid.  I was just wondering....what exactly does this battery do?  Will the system be able to run without the battery?  I can't find this information ANYWHERE online.  So that's why I'm posting here in hopes that someone would know (I doubt it though)

[NFG]

It's for the real time clock (RTC).  It tracks how long it's been running and how many coins have been put into it, to allow the operator to determine profitability.

[Hojo_Norem]

It's for the real time clock (RTC).  It tracks how long it's been running and how many coins have been put into it, to allow the operator to determine profitability.

It does a little more than that.  The battery keeps the backup ram active.  Thar backup ram stores things like hi-scores and game settings (for up to 8 different carts) and various other settings.  Im not to sure but the MVS might complain about corrupt backup ram without the battery.

The best thing to do is either modify the pcb to take a regular lithium cell or replace the NiCd battery for a NiMh.  I did that with my 1FS but rather hunt down a drop in replacement, I just got one of those 3.6v replacement cordless phone batteries and after I removed the old battery I just soldered the wires from the phone battery to the points on the pcb where the original sat.

[Drakon]

wow thanks for all the help.  Here's what I did.  I removed the hot glue from around the battery, and carefully wiggled it back and forth until it simply came loose (since I couldn't desolder, the underside has those protective pads).  Then I just took some heavy duty wires from a 286 computer power supply and soldered them onto the battery points of the board and soldered the other ends back onto the battery.  So this way I have the same battery, it's just now seperate from the board incase anything leaks.  We tested the system, works great (not sure if the battery is saving or not but it might just need a recharge).  System doesn't complain at all (yayyyyy).

[viletim]

The best thing to do is either modify the pcb to take a regular lithium cell or replace the NiCd battery for a NiMh.  I did that with my 1FS but rather hunt down a drop in replacement, I just got one of those 3.6v replacement cordless phone batteries and after I removed the old battery I just soldered the wires from the phone battery to the points on the pcb where the original sat.

These batteries are charged in circuit, putting a lithium cell in there would cause problems. NiMh should be fine - it's just a trickle charged.