Question about Genesis carts/save batteries

[Hobie-wan]

Finally bought myself a new plug and play megadrive/genesis that takes the old cartridges (great buy truly) to play a copy of landstalker I hunted down at Gamestraders, but had this same problem, the battery save seems to not work properly, I cant even delete the old save files or copy them to other slots, really disappointed, but the thing has 15 other games built in, which is okay plus I can play other carts when I find em which is really good, bought it at KMart. So I can change the battery eh?? What sort of battery is in there? I have no idea about such things.

Landstalker has a tabbed CR2032 battery inside. A new one would need to be soldered in once getting the cart open.

US carts one would need a game bit. Japanese Mega Drive carts use regular phillips screws I believe, but they're hidden under the label on the back of the cart. Not sure about PAL carts.

[Reprise]

Not sure about PAL carts.

I just checked my collection, and PAL carts seem to require a game bit as well.

Btw, about soldering in a new battery, is it just a case of you need to be extremely careful? Because I read on one games site once that under no circumstances should you ever try to solder a new battery in, because of the risk of explosion.

[synbiosfan]

Btw, about soldering in a new battery, is it just a case of you need to be extremely careful? Because I read on one games site once that under no circumstances should you ever try to solder a new battery in, because of the risk of explosion.

I just replaced my battery in PS IV and at no time did I fear an explosion. You would have to lay the iron on the battery to do that. The tabs are put through the board with the battery on the other side so your iron shouldn't come close. The solder heats up and cools quickly so very little heat should be transferred from the tabs to the battery.

It could happen but it's unlikely.

[Hobie-wan]

Because I read on one games site once that under no circumstances should you ever try to solder a new battery in, because of the risk of explosion.

This would have been someone trying to solder something directly to the battery, which won't work very well and you'd have to hold the iron on there a long time which is dangerous. If you have a battery with tabs already attached, that's what the tabs are for.

[Reprise]

Right, just what I thought. Thanks for the replies guys. I've never replaced a dead battery in an old cart before (never had to yet surprisingly),so was just checking. The site I read was probably just warning about touching the battery directly with the iron and I missunderstood.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

I was pretty panicky about changing tabbed batteries myself (albeit this was in a synthesizer worth several hundred dollars) but it ended up being a great decision and easy as pie. Changing that cart battery will be loads easier is only about a half hour (if that) job and a fun way to practice your soldering.