A few questions about the battery in my Ketsui PCB...

[Vyxx]

Relatively new to the PCB scene and I've just got a few questions regarding the infamous batteries I've read are used on Espgaluda, Ketsui, & Daioujou boards.

1. The Ketsui PCB I recently received has (as far as I know) never had the battery changed. Both previous owners never changed it, so I'm assuming the thing is 6-7 years old, which is when the begin to crap out right? No signs of fuzzies yet but I want to do something now, sooner rather than later.

2. From the information I scanned over the battery is just used for the saves in Free Play mode? Anything else, or am I way off?
So if i just got rid of the battery, I can still play in Default right?

3. I could just....snip it off, carefully right ... Looking through some other threads about the batteries crapping out in Daioujou PCBs I saw more than one person do this.

4. I have a DDP Daioujou PCB on the way to me now actually, and would probably do the same for it. Anything I should know before I do so?

Thanks for any help guys

[gray117]

I was going to say it is fine to play without batteries as long as it is not DOJ BLACK LABEL

- and it appears it still is - BUT - with ketsui you might note this experience and solution:

http://arcadefever.blogspot.com/2010/01 ... olved.html

You can always solder a battery up to the board via wires and have the battery located away from the board; preferably in a little holder ... I honestly don't know why this isn't more common - very easy to do and makes battery changing even easier.

[Dave_K.]

In case my blog post wasn't clear enough, ESPGaluda and DOJ (White Label) do not require a battery, and can be safely operated without it. The only drawback being default settings. Don't like the demo sound, or want Free Play, then take 5 seconds to activate it in the operator menu and everything will be fine.

For Ketsui, its a bit more complicated. A battery is also not required, provided you don't need Free Play. If you do need Free Play to be running, then you'll need to upgrade to the fix rom (with its slightly more annoying lock-on sound), otherwise you'll still run into the free play bug with or without the battery. If you don't need free play, then just make sure you press the credit button once after booting up the board, and all will be fine without a battery. You can also go in to the operator menu and disable demo sound if you don't like that or make whatever other changes you need.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

For Vyxx,

The only minor gripe of removing such battery installed in any of the three plain vanilla PGM-based Cave PCBs (DDP-DOJ, Ketsui & ESPgaluda) is that you'll have to keep changing the Arcade Operator's settings each time that it is booted up. On my DDP-DOJ PCB, I had my battery changed so it is good for another four to five years down the road -- and yes, Free Play is already selected from the get-go when powered up is the way how I like it. No need to phyiscally insert a coin or token to credit it up or press a button to "coin it up" either.

There's a topic on the discussion of "Free Play" bug found on a regular DDP-DOJ PCB for your perusual: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... hi+DOJ+Bug

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Vyxx]

So, i actually noticed a little bit of "fuzzies" forming around the one side of the battery, and I just decided to remove it. I just soldered it off, no problems, everything is good

Thanks for the info everyone, I just wanted to be very clear on what I was doing!

Cheers

[Trevor spencer]

This is the reason i got rid of all my PGM boards , The battery made me nervous , I didnt want it leaking on my very expensive game

This is a decent mod but i couldnt bring myseld to mod my ketsui board from its original state



http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic. ... lit=ketsui

[gray117]

You can always solder a battery up to the board via wires and have the battery located away from the board; preferably in a little holder ... I honestly don't know why this isn't more common - very easy to do and makes battery changing even easier.

There's probably something Freudian about quoting myself, but surely this kind of mod would not be considered destructive to the boards in anyway, even for cave aficionados? You could always put the battery back onto the board if/when you wanted to sell.

As handy as it is; I've no real idea why you'd bother to attach a battery holder onto a board AND inside a case... keep the batteries away from traces and chips; I do this with all boards, I get hacked off just seeing broken neo geo motherboards - let alone a dead doj...