Orbitor 1
Stern Electronics, 1982Picked up an Orbitor-1 and going through my to-do list. One of those is to remove the battery from the mpu. However, when I went to pull it I found it still looks pristine and measures just over 4VDC. Is this even a battery? Not sure if the 8604 code is an expiration date (April '84) but I expected it to be loooong dead.
PXL_20221229_225830210.MP (resized).jpgYes that's the NiCad rechargeable battery. Get it off the board before it leaks. You're lucky. Go with NVRAM or remote battery pack with blocking diode or 1.5F supercap.
The battery is fine. Everyone will tell you to remove it but, if you don't leave your game on many hours at a time, it will be ok as is. I have many games with original batteries from the 80's that haven't leaked. Good to check once in a while, but I would not replace it. You will hear alot of bs about cut it off right away.
These batteries leak when overcharged. Routed games were on 24/7 which resulted in the leaks. I have had games for 20+ years with no leaks ever.
Why risk it? Cleaning up the damage when these leak sucks. It takes 10 seconds to cut it off and remove the leading cause of ruined boards.
Thanks. Wasn't sure if it was even a battery. Would have guessed even a rechargeable NiCad battery would've been toast by now!
Really fun game...in a large collection.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisHiblerPinball
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-mpu-200-battery and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Wasilla, AK