31st August 2019, 8:08 PM
The Great Work begins.
I've bought a lot of battery holders and Maxell brand replacement batteries for this, and have started to replace all my battery backed games with fresh ones, along with battery holders so the next time around it's far easier.
(I picked Maxell because they have a proven track record. Plenty of my NES games STILL hold their saves. That's good enough for me.)
The first step was taking a multimeter and tracing out, on each type of cart, where a good place to set up a secondary battery would be. I lost a few saves in the process, but their sacrifice is not in vain. I'm pretty adept at spotting the patter now, just following the lighter parts of a PCB to the nearest pin and soldering an extra wire onto that. (I clip off the legs of a resistor for these, since they're nice and still and won't move around on their own.) I actually have just left the legs on. I then stick a spare battery in a spare battery holder and alligator clip the legs of that holder to my "spare" pins. It's important to do this in parallel, not serial. Once that's done, I desolder the existing battery. It's taken a lot of practice but I'm getting pretty good at this part now, and can get the old battery out pretty quick. The new one is a little tricky. The slimmer "negative" pin isn't quite slim enough, so I have to clip it down a little, but then it fits fine. Add a little flux, and the solder flows in and grips it very well. Once the holder's in place, I slip in a fresh battery and finally unclip the emergency battery. Seal it up, and it's ready to test. I lost two big saves at first, but now I know just where I went wrong and am avoiding those errors going forward. I've got battery holders in Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time now along with the same classic saves I've had for years.
Gameboy games are going to be tricky. So so small...
I've bought a lot of battery holders and Maxell brand replacement batteries for this, and have started to replace all my battery backed games with fresh ones, along with battery holders so the next time around it's far easier.
(I picked Maxell because they have a proven track record. Plenty of my NES games STILL hold their saves. That's good enough for me.)
The first step was taking a multimeter and tracing out, on each type of cart, where a good place to set up a secondary battery would be. I lost a few saves in the process, but their sacrifice is not in vain. I'm pretty adept at spotting the patter now, just following the lighter parts of a PCB to the nearest pin and soldering an extra wire onto that. (I clip off the legs of a resistor for these, since they're nice and still and won't move around on their own.) I actually have just left the legs on. I then stick a spare battery in a spare battery holder and alligator clip the legs of that holder to my "spare" pins. It's important to do this in parallel, not serial. Once that's done, I desolder the existing battery. It's taken a lot of practice but I'm getting pretty good at this part now, and can get the old battery out pretty quick. The new one is a little tricky. The slimmer "negative" pin isn't quite slim enough, so I have to clip it down a little, but then it fits fine. Add a little flux, and the solder flows in and grips it very well. Once the holder's in place, I slip in a fresh battery and finally unclip the emergency battery. Seal it up, and it's ready to test. I lost two big saves at first, but now I know just where I went wrong and am avoiding those errors going forward. I've got battery holders in Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time now along with the same classic saves I've had for years.
Gameboy games are going to be tricky. So so small...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)