You could've soldered the battery holder on the backside of the pcb. Would've stayed clear of other components and as a bonus made it possible to replace the battery without taking out the board.

If you have an Amiga 2000 in the attic, it's even more important to remove that battery. On the 2000, it's mounted right next to the CPU.

Somewhere in the dark and nasty regions where nobody goes Stands an ancient castle Deep within this dank and uninviting place lives Berk (hello!) Overwoked servant of the thing upstairs (berk feed me!) But that's nothing compared to the horrors that lurk beneath the trap door For there is always something down there in the dark, waiting to come out Don't you open that trap door You're a fool if you dare Stay away from that trap door 'Cause there's something down there

Thanks for the video Noel. I did the CR2032 mod years ago. I did add the diode but not the 200K ohm resistor. I'll add one now. Best wishes from France.

You might just be the first guy I've seen properly showing how to do the CR2032 conversion. I've been dying to find a simple guide as I have an MSI 486 board I need to fix. Super cool, thanks!

Thanks Noel. Another great video. I think I've done this mod at least half a dozen times on Amigas before. For the first half of the video I was thinking "Ohh no he's not gonna expose the CR2032 to 5v recharge is he?". Ohh me of little faith. :)

Great video. When installing the wire replacement for the damaged trace you can scratch off the solder mask and solder it on to the remaining trace.

What a coincidence! Last week I was trying to get my wife interested in some games and she told me she likes pinball... so I fired up the minimig core on the SiDi FPGA and launched... Pinball fantasies!!! :-) She liked it so much that I did set up my old A500 so she could have the original Amiga experience. My A500 has a trapdoor memory expansion without RTC, so there is no risk of battery leakage. Cheers!

Thanks Noel for this great video! I seldom post comments but I discovered your channel 2-3 weeks ago and since then, I can't stop watching your videos again and again, I learn a lot out of them and I also recognize myself in some situations: I am myself designing and developing my own retro 8-bit computer based on a Z80 and some problems I met are similar to the ones you show in some videos😄 The latest one I can think of is a chip that doesn't "respond" when trying to read a value from it (with Z80's IN instruction). When trying to debug its pins by plugging a logic analyzer, the whole computer stopped working. The cause? the "failing" chip's CE/ChipEnable pin was not connected... So it was never outputting any value on the data bus. When plugging the logic analyzer, all the pins where pulled-down internally (with a big resistor), so CE was always considered low, messing up the data bus 😅

I love how your t-shirts relate to the computer you're working on, but I reckon you should wear that Amiga t-shirt next time you work on an Atari ST. 🤣

Nice work noel saved and will last for many years with its new battery .

Those dark spots on the wide track indicate that the track got corroded under the mask. I've just repaired the HIC module with such a problem. Though the track looks intact - it's usually not! So, those spots should be cleaned up and track has to be restored, sometime with the help of a wire (in case the corrosion ate the track's full width). Thanks for showing Pinball Fantasies! I played it on PC with Adlib and this music really brings back those good memories!

Good idea for that resistor and diode. I replaced such old Varta battery a couple of months ago on a KCS power pc board. I used also a 2032 for that.

Pinball dreams nightmare table is my favourite. You have to get the right version though. As the original seems to freeze progress for some reason.

at 4:11 i can see traces that are a little corroded . i usually scratch the green of the trace completely and see if there is small broken link . only then i am pretty sure the trace is fully functional . exellent cleaning i usually do that with acetone. Exellent job . ty

Thanks for ordering me to remove the batteries from my three A500s -- needed that. All had leaked, but none too badly yet, so caught just about in time. 👍👍

Oh so there's a contender for Adrian's 8bit Dance Party, yay!

Saw this video last night, today I got out the Amiga from the under-stair cupboard. Removed the RAM expansion, had to desolder the metal shield and yes the battery has a white fuzzy coating round it. Sigh. Looks like the corrosion is spreading under the solder mask, but hasn't reached any other components yet. Thanks for the heads up.

If you look for tubular copper rivets they have them on ebay and aliexpress you can get some that are small enough "kits with sizes between .9mm and1.7mm or even up to 2.5mm diameter" to repair some via's on boards where they are missing. They can be cut to height or a small center punch chisel can be used to create a second flange once in place to sit kind of flush with both sides of the board and you just use solder to complete the connection.

Glad you were able to fix it! I replaced mine aswell maybe a year ago. When I took out my Amiga recently to recap it, I checked the system and the clock still got the correct date and time :-D So it worked perfect :-D

You could also use lir2032h rechargeable battery which are drop in replacement for cr2032 and would not need the diode + resistor, and could potentially work longer.

Had to do this too, my CR2032 adapter had long legs so I was able to have it raised off the board enough to to clear the A500 trapdoor rails. Other than that, I was also lucky in my timing. Some leakage but nothing major and thankfully nothing damaged.

Man, I'm actually glad my A1200 didn't come with a clock chip by default. I got a Microbotics 4MB/FPU board with a clock in 1993, and it had a CR2032 on it already (it's a great board). Alas, I did lose my A3000T to a bad battery, as it was way too much damage for me to fix myself. I sold it to another guy who specializes in those repairs, and I can only hope he got it up and running again.

Yet another great video & tutorial :) Thanks Noel

Enjoying the project Noel. Your videos are among the best in the business, if not the best. Picking the best is like picking which one of your children you will save when the ship goes down. You have a very good chance!

Great video! I love the Amstrad version of Funky Stars.

Sharp dental tools are great for getting under bent-over leads and prying them up.

This problem affects other makes of vintage computers, not only Amigas. The Amigakit store sells a CR2023 holder with built-in diode for exactly this application. The hole and pin layout is standard, so this works on other makes of computers. The Varta batteries are also still available as an industry-standard part (eBay has them) with the same pin layout. Note that these are NiMH, which is compatible with the original NiCd battery, but better technology. Note also, rechargeable lithium cells have different charging requirements from NiCd or NiMH, so will likely need a modified charging circuit if you want to use these.

Why no supercap as replacement?

Now you have me thinking about all the stuff I have hiding in my storage... May be time to go Varta hunting!

Deactivate the acid with vinegar (high percentage one) than use water and backing powder to deactivate the vinegar and give it a good rinse with water. Or put the expansion into your dishwasher :).

3:06 That trace that seems to be going from the M6242B to the negative of the Battery pad looks too damaged. The trace connects to the big square pad of the battery but that pad looks totally gone.

Varta! Destroyer of worlds.

some serious nostalgia here for me, adding a switch to my 512K ram expansion board was my first ever hardware mod, I went a bit further though and actually drilled a hole in my case for the switch, and then seeing you fire up Pinball Fantasies - that was one of my favourites also! Many teenage hours spent on this particular 'fantasy' :)

you could probably mount the resistor on back on the board that it would work fine and the amiga door would close fine

Love watching your videos here on You Tube. So educational and informative that i find your restoration of old gem consoles so absorbing. Well done indeed and carry on that great work :)

They also make 2032 rechargeable batteries. Love to see if that could be used on the board. And restore the recharging function.

Nice repair! Keep up the good work.

A LIR2032 (with or without PC pins) is a recharge version of that cell.

I totally removed the wrong battery a few years ago. :) I was just seeing a battery on my Blizzard 1230 card and decided to panick-snip the connector to get it out. Sooooooo stupid as it was akin to the CR2032. * sigh * After that I decided to give the Amiga a total revamp by someone who actually did know what he was doing. :)

Shottky diode has lower voltage drop, so the battery will last way longer with it compared to regular diode. Alternatively you could use rechargable ml2032 instead of non-rechargable cr2032

Exactamente el mismo trabajo que le hice a mi 500. Por suerte encontre en su momento el datasheet de la pila CR que recomendaba el diodo+resistencia. Todo funciono perfecto en el programa de Test. Luego descubri que muchas versiones del Workbench tenian un bug y no tomaban bien el RTC. Hay mucha info al respecto. (Sorry for the spanish post. Saturday laziness kicked in)

I imagine you know this trick, but, when desoldering components having big lug pins (such as the dead battery,) it is helpful to cut away the component, from its pins, before applying heat. This eliminates the battery's mass serving as a heat sink and sucking away the heat that is needed to reflow the pins. This reduces the reflow heating time (a.k.a. "dwell time",) which reduces the likelihood of lifting a pad, or trace. I hope that helps folks just learning to solder.

I've got two A500+, they have the varta death hell batteries right there on the motherboard, right next to the data path. One of them is going to need some tracks rebuilding... doh. The other is okie dokie. good job I checked them a little while ago and tore those leaky horrors off the boards (well, unsoldered them anyway).

Does anyone else remember the cartoon stay away from that trapdoor!

Also, 17:34 "And now, it's time for some party land" might've been a good time for the dancy party :P Or another dance party. For that matter, why do we even need an excuse to do a dance party? DANCE PARTYYY! \ö/

Man I wish I could have an Amiga. Maybe you could cover Amiga emulation, how to set it up and enjoy the Amiga virtually.

Maybe the "one-handed jumper" was intended to be used for a hot-swap of the battery without loosing the clock?

When checking the voltage to the real-time-clock chip, you measured the supply voltage relative to ground at a point on the PCB. Ideally, you should have measured between power and ground pins on the IC since that would also verify both PCB power traces to the chip. I am pretty sure that the negative trace to the chip still has a break in it (now hidden under the battery holder). I would also have considered a supercapacitor rather than a non-rechargeable Lithium battery, since this would also work well and would mean no other circuit changes would be required.

I have Pinball Fantasies for the 64-bit Atari Jaguar! Stones and Bones is my favorite board. I got a score over 10 billion on it one night after 4 hours of "in the zone" play!

IPSTORM next? YESSSSSSSSSSS…..

Disaster Area is my favorite band.

Fairly sure the Amiga 500+ itself doesn't have an onboard clock, yet it has a VARTA battery on board. I remember watching a video, hearing it has a varta, I immediately pulled mine out of the cupboard and snipped off the battery.

My original A500 memory expansion board died due to leaking battery corrosion. It was a mess. Luckily it was confined to the board and didn't migrate to the main PCB

Pretty fun. 16 bits just seems like so many to me :)

Almost 50% of viewers liked your content. That's a really good ratio.

Buen trabajo!!👍

Disaster area. The loudest rockband in the Galaxy. Leader is Hot Black Desiato.

Lets expand up on this. If you have any old items with batteries make sure that the batteries are removed.

I've been worried about my A500 for ages, But it is wrapped up in foam and burried under a lot of other stuff at the back of a small part of the attic that I cant get to since my accident. Oops.

The horrors. Varta

There are the type that allow with recharge for the coin cell battery but can be tricky to find

10:00 oooor we can use a VR2032 insted - rechargable CR2032 batery :)

You seem to have a huge backlog of videos, how interesting!

I own a Amiga 3000, attached a battery wired two pin slide on cap connector, relocated battery off the motherboard to side on motherboard, battery completely wrapped.

It's sad that Commodore and others would have never even thought about the problems those pesky batteries would cause in the future back when making the machines, I was given an early Amiga2000 some years ago and I knew the first thing I needed to do was open it up and remove the offending item. Sadly I was too late, far too late the horrors I found inside was like no other leakage I'd ever seen, with over half the entire board corroded. There was no hope for it so I salvaged the chip set and other parts and cleaned them up but never got around to testing them but I suspect the CPU was probable dead.

I had some sort of hybrid A500, that had like 4mb in total or something (or maybe 8mb?) I can't remember exactly... can't remember what expansion was in it, but it was very similar, although a little longer, and I believe there was a ribbon with a chip that replaced an existing one on the main board..... was sooo long ago, wish I had never sold the thing :(

Not sure if anyone mentioned it yet but did you look into using a LIR2032 rechargeable 2032 battery instead of using the resister and diode? I have heard you can replace the varta with the coin cell holder and the LIR2032 without any modifications to the circuit.

There is a recharable version of the CR2032 and other CR coin cells available i think. The CR prefix is changed to some other letters but i can't remember what they are.

Another fine example of restoration! Great as always sir! I have so many old PC motherboards with that accursed battery on it.... I need to get them out and start fixing them up.

Removing the battery is particularly important on the A500 Plus because it's on the motherboard, which then gets ruined by the leakage.

You should use germanium diodes. They have way lower voltage drop ( i have a few as that said .2v) I think they have a bit higher leakage but i doubt it will do anything. Also lithium cells dont explode, i tried charging several of them and they didnt even leak, they just degraded even further. (As in 2.5v before charging, 1v after charging.)

Nice video Noel. Can we sue Varta for all the damages we have to deal with ?

Pinball Fantasies! What a game!

I'm not sure I would have used a zener instead of a normal diode in that application.

What kind of diode did you use or recommend? It has to be a Schottky diode or?

Instant NiCad-removal! Please spread the word! (even some KZfaqrs try to push charge those old blooming NiCDs without mercy. I was really horified by todays LMNC video)

There was a track going from the - side of the battery (now under the holder) which looks like it isn't connected. Where did it go, was it connected and was that important? :)

Thumbs up just for using Turrican 2 title music :D

Interesting video. However why not just use a rechargeable CR02 equivalent?

Hi Noel, I think my previous comment was removed because of the URL I've included. My apologies I'm not advertising for anyone. All I wanted to say is that there are PCBs to solve the problem with CR2032 batteries including a diode to avoid charging the battery by the Amiga. I also indicated that the RTC chip 72421 is much better than the existing M6242 as it's more accurate, it does not need an oscillator, and it does not need the adjustment variable capacitor. I hope you keep my comment :) and sorry for posting the URL earlier; non-intentional.

How long does such a replacement battery typically last?

Will you incorporate the switch into the casing for convenience?

Why not just get the ML2032? They are the same size but rechargeable. Also, good soldering practice says to cut legs of components to size before soldering as the snap of the cutting tool might make breaks in the solder invisible to the naked eye.

exellent job!!!!

1:35 I think you’ll find it’s already well fluxed…. 🙊

with that kind of leg difference (on the CR2032 holder) I'd probably just bend the pins slightly, just jam it in, then solder it ¦3

The top layer track from the negative battery terminal to the RTC IC (under the battery holder) seem to be broken... you haven't checked the continuity between BAT - and GND of the RTC IC, and during measuring back-up voltage you have used a ground jumper next to the battery instead of GND IC pin. The IC will hold the time even without battery attached for a few minutes.

instead of using a CR2032 and killing the charging circuit with a diode, wouldn't it have save time and effort to use a supercapacitor in replacement of the Varta battery? I think that's what in my HP servers, but I'm not so sure any longer.

Okay, I got a question for you: I've got an Amiga 1200 with a processor and RAM upgrade + a recent addition; the Indivision AGA Mk3 scanline doubler, which gives my Amiga an HDMI-port (no analogue to digital conversion as it's grabbing data directly from the graphics chip). After adding the scanline doubler, I can only run the Amiga for a few minutes before it crashes with random errors and sometimes just a fullscreen random color. After the first crash I can only run it for seconds. Do you think heat is the issue? And how would I go about solving that, if it is? If you need any more information, please don't hesitate to ask. If you want to PM me, that'd be awesome too. I work in IT fixing PCs and the occassional Apple devices, but this Amiga has me stumped. Please, I desperately need help.

Nice video and again with the amazing shirts #16bitdanceparty

Why not use an ML2032? It's rechargeable. You might need additional circuitry - just a thought. Not sure.

Who was the smart-asses that designed it to have the battery directly onto the board?

I don't quite understand why the voltage drop of the diode + resistor is only 0.2V. Isn't a diode drop usually 0.6V or 0.7V?

Wierdly the Ram showed up as Slow/chip ram rather than the usual fast ram. I wonder what the difference is as all the 500 half meg expansions of the time were Fast Ram. I used to have to use the command fastmemfirst to get the max 512k chip ram for use in Soundtracker :)

I'm curious, why didn't you use a rechargeable 2032? Would that not have worked? Thanks! :)

better idea is replace type of battery, maybe a rechargeable lithium battery can be added there with step down module

Lithium button cells was invented in 70s and they were still using crappy NiCd batteries.

worth noting that it's not a VARTA thing, it's NiCd batteries in general.

Ooo, I caught that Turrican 2 theme in there! :'D I love that song! Also, 16 bits is absolutely /perfect/ I say :P I even (occasionally :-\) work on my own (toy) 16-bit ISA that I hope to implement in hardware some day