Can you explain the wire connections? Positive to positive, that part is clear

For the negative, how did you route it to the negative connections?

Marc

Isn't there a negative lead from the CR2032? If I am hearing you correctly, you are tying - and + together?

Marc

Yes, can you take this step by step with pictures and show the blocking diode etc. to prevent charging?

suggestions for a source for the battery holder?

I cannot see behind the battery holder, so I'll need a little more help if you can. can you please be a little more descriptive of what goes where?

Marc

I understand your point but just to clarify, there is a blocking diode on WPC games (it is already installed on the CPU board). The blocking diode is not originally installed on Bally games so that the battery can recharge. So you have to install one on Bally games when adding a non-rechargeable battery.

I think you'll find that a coin cell battery drains quickly when used on WPC games. WPC games have a real time clock that is constantly running when the game is powered down. That's how the time and date stay current. Takes more power than other games.

The lower left cell connection connects to the ground bus on the PCB

It is jumpered over to the lower right cell connector with the jumper wire (I use zero ohm jumpers, same idea) and the lower right cell connector is connected via trace behind the board to the top of the center cell.

on regular WPC CPUs, the battery holder will hit the reset generator. You can heat the leads up and bend it out of the way.

I've had a few running for several months on a CR2032. You could look at a CR2450 if you wanted to go a little bigger.

Thank you, John!

I am no electronics expert by any means and this obviously works but how? Isn't a 2032 3V and the WPC games take 4.5v? Or are the batteries in parallel? I never really considered this before and am not at home to look.

Here's some perhaps more clear pictures of the same thing (using cr2032), on system11, wpc, and wpc95.
The jumper wire across the bottom is to tie the original three AA battery holder connections together, so the two pole cr2032 holder makes contact at negative and positive points.

The cr2032 voltage (about 3.2 volts) is plenty to keep 6264 RAM alive. these rams keep their memory until you get under about 2 volts. though this doesn't seem like much "head room", it is actually plenty.

Lithium batteries work differently than standard AA batteries. Lithiums keep their voltage at their advertised voltage, until they "die", and then then drop off voltage quickly to zero. AA batteries are more of a downward straight curve. that is, they start at 4.5 volts (1.5 volts times three), and over time, dissipate on a straight line (over time) to zero volts. When Lithiums dies, they were at 3 volts yesterday, and then today at 0 volts. this is unlike a standard AA battery system.

If you go to ebay.com, cr2032 batteries are available in lots of 100 for about $10 (name brand cr2032 batteries can be more, but i just get the generic ones that come in individual blister packs). Also the holders (there are several different kinds, i like the style shown below), are available in lots of 100 for about $15. That's enough batteries and holders to do 100 games for $25 (25 cents per game)! You can't get cheaper than that.

cr2032 on system11. (pinrepair.com)

cr2032 on wpc89. (pinrepair.com)

cr2032 on wpc95. (pinrepair.com)

Thank you for the explanation.

I prefer this style of cr2032 holder...
ebay.com link: Wholesale 100 x CR2032 2032 Cell Coin Battery Socket Holder Case 4 1

I tried another setup on for a WPC89 board which also works.

WPC89_2032_(resized).jpg

What is the advantage of this battery aside from price? Do they not leak? I just got a game with this type of holder already installed.

On WPC 89, actually the battery holder does not have to hit the reset transistor device. When the reset transistor is in the way, which happens only sometimes, what I do is heat the two bottom legs of the reset transistor device and just angle it up a smidge. This is enough so that the battery holder fits into the existing battery holder holes. I'm not big on drilling holes through circuit boards unless it's absolutely needed (which it is not on WPC 89 boards). It's just a little too invasive for my tastes.

i use a 2354 on wpc and wpc95,
i had a customer who had a 2032 fitted to a wp95, and the battery was only lasting 6 month due to the power the clock uses, after replacing the 2032 twice in just over a year i felt it was more of an inconvenience so I changed it to a 2354 over a year ago and its still going strong.
i have had 2354 batteries fitted to some wpc and wp95 boards for more than 2 years and they are still going strong

i have lost count on how many boards i have done this to. i use a 1.5mm drill bit for the hole.

That's interesting. Can anyone confirm this?
I'm very interested in doing this since it's clean and easy, but if it the batteries only last 6 months I'd rather go the NVRAM route. At least when I change the AA batteries on my own machines it's because it's my maintenance schedule and not because they are dead.

I'd love to start changing over batteries to these.

Sorry if this is an idiot question but I have no electronics knowledge but doesn't changing to a NVRAM eliminate the need for all batteries? If so, why not just stick the $6 chip in that is being discussed in another thread in this forum and be done with the whole battery thing?

just use the larger batteries (even the home pin wpc boards come with a larger battery) and you will get more than 2 years out of the larger batteries.
I used batteries from 2 different suppliers just in case the first battery was a dud, and the customer had the machine less then 6 months when i replaced the first battery.
so there was the original battery (dont know how long it was in there before customer bought the machine) then there was the 1st 2032 i supplied, around 7 months later it died and i replaced it with another brand of 2032 well within its expiry date then around 7 months it died.
replaced it with a 2354 over a year ago and its still going strong.
i have been fitting 2354 for at least 3 years now with no calls of flat batteries.
yes i did say you will get more than 2 years out of them and i have been fitting them for more than 3 years with no flat battery reports

it takes longer for me to socket a ram chip than to replace a battery holder on site (or a customers house).
I do give the customer the choice of NV ram and never having to replace a battery again or the battery 90% go with the battery
i won't chance the secondhand $6 chips as i warrant my parts and labor for 6 months so customers have to buy the $30 new chips.
if I install a second hand chip in a machine 50klms away and it fails then i cant charge for the 100km round trip i have to do to go diagnose the fault and replace the $6 chip.
And its not often that i do just the one machine, usually 3 to 10 machines by same owner done at once so the $30 nv ram and labor time starts becoming expensive

I have a cr2032 mounted in probably 15 of our WPC games. One game was "eating" these, at about 6 months per battery. The rest have had cr2032 mounted battery for several years, without any change. In fact, i don't think i've change *any* of the cr2032 in our games (except for one, see below.)

the one game i was having problems with was Junkyard. The bottom line is this... the brand of 6264 on that particular game was different than all the other games (in fact, it's a Rottendog CPU board.) Perhaps it wasn't the low power 6264 variety? I don't know. But since there was already a socket in for the RAM, i just used a RAMtron on that particular game.

I use cr2032 batteries because they are a) inexpensive, b) very common (probably the most common coin battery), and c) you can, in a bind, buy them at the drug store.

The cell battery holder has 2 legs on it, do you just solder one leg in the hole on the board and not use the other leg? thank you

The battery holder has two legs. each leg, conveniently, fits into the existing holes for the original AA battery holder. That's why drilling a hole seems really silly to me. But hey, there's different ways to skin a cat i guess.

If batteries are removed and NVRAM is used the built-in clock on the WPC ASIC will not keep time when power is turned off. Some games have a "midnight madness" mode that depends on accurate timekeeping, which obviously will not pop up as expected. There are also hidden Easter eggs on some games that will display "happy birthday" messages and such on certain dates which will not work without a running clock.

If you can live without those features then NVRAM is a good solution to changing batteries every year.

Clay, can these be used in Stern Whitestar games and where would you mount the holder and jumper the wires?

If you value your time more than a few bucks an hour, the AA lithium will probably be a better option for most than the CR2032 replacement. CR2032 have a typical capacity of 200 mAh compared with 3000+ mAh for Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA, so AA will typically last much longer. Removing a CPU board, reworking it, and reinstalling it seems like a big pain compared with spending $4.50 on eBay and being done with changing batteries for a game for perhaps the next 20 years.

the problem I have is just that I have so many games spending $4.50 per machine for batteries is just not a viable option. Frankly at that dollar amount the nv ram is a better choice. the nvram is actually cheaper now then three AA lithium's. The CR 2032 option is an excellent option with a very low cost and the batteries last for years and don't leak.

it will require a bigger battery holder, hence why i drill the hole in the board, the reset I.C will get in the way

Again, it all comes down to what your time is worth and how adept you are at reworking the boards. If (as in your situation) you're planning on doing 100 games and you basically wrote the book (or shot the video) on reworking pinball boards, it'll probably save a couple hundred bucks to do the CR2032 route. If you can rework 100 boards for significantly less than $300-400 worth of your own time, I agree it makes sense. But for most of regular folk, 10-20 games at $4.50 a pop isn't too expensive, you can be done quickly, and you even get to save your settings and HSTD. And it'll last much longer than CR2032 and addresses the leakage problem.

i'll buy that thinking. it just comes down to volume i guess.
also i use cr2032 for nearly everything. actually for everything. it's pretty rare i have a game where the cr2032 does not work. so it really pushes that number north of 200 machines which get cr2032.

that is correct,
also if it is a local machine and it has a faulty ram chip then i would have no problems using a cheap NV ram chip (I have to remove the old ram chip and fit a socket any way)
The machine that was eating the CR2032 batteries i came across had a genuine wpc95 board in it with the original ram chip, but as we know WMS did use several different brands of ram in their boards (and at least 2 different kinds of ram)

Here's some other applications that use a cr2032 battery.
Note on the system80 and the Bally -35/-17, a blocking diode must be used, since the original battery was re charage-able. The dataeast application does not need a blocking diode (the board has one built in, like WPC does too.) Same situation with Williams system3-7, no additional blocking diode needed.

I would like to add that if you are running an AMI brand 5101 ram on a williams system3-7, the cr2032 does not work well. The AMI branded 5101 is power hungry, and drains a cr2032 in about 6 months. AMI branded chips suck, by the way, and i generally replace them (be it PIA, CPU or RAM) with a different brand.

Dataeast:
cr2032 on Dataeast. PinRepair.com

Williams system6. Note the legs on the battery holder must be bent a bit to make it fit in the existing holes.
cr2032 on Williams sys6. PinRepair.com

Bally -35 (blocking diode on back side of board. Also a hole was drilled for this application.)
cr2032 on Bally -35 with blocking diode. PinRepair.com

Gottlieb system80 (blocking diode on back side of board, no hole drilling needed.)
cr2032 on System80 with blocking diode. PinRepair.com

You don't have to live without those features.

If you want to play Midnight Madness, set the game clock to 11:50pm, just like you do now with batteries - takes 1 minute.

I'm kind of surprised that people don't mind using used chips pulled from copiers where who knows how much they were read/written to -- when even the reads are said to count against endurance with RAMTRON (via Andrew's inquiry to CYPRESS). The FM16W08 smd chip has a much higher endurance so it probably wouldn't matter so much regardless. The rare FM1608B DIP part (which I actually have) that was never produced in mass quantities also has the same higher endurance. But the regular FM1608-120-PG part number that people are buying used and importing themselves.. the endurance is much lower and it seems like we've identified that endurance might be an issue there -- especially considering the READ operations are counting against the chip's rated endurance.

It'd be nice to find out real-world averages of reads/writes for various manufacturer's mpus to gauge what kind of life expectancy there would be IF it was a brand new chip. I'd personally be a bit leery at this point (as it seems you are) in putting used chips in pinball machines if you're a service/repair guy and attempting to guarantee the thing will last for 37+ years. Maybe a few years go by and the chip has failed because of hitting its life expectancy early.. then you're out replacing the chip several times because you sold something that was supposed to last decades and it's not. Sure, if it is any kind of issue.. it's probably only going to affect the people that are operating the games where they're left on 12hrs or more each day as even memory operations in attract mode are counting against the chip's life.. and not so much the home user -- but it still could be a problem.

I'm the scientific approach guy -- I want to know what to expect out of these parts & see the numbers. I think at this time, people should be a bit more cautious with the lower endurance RAMTRON versions.. especially if they're used pulls -- at least in terms of expecting them to last for the long haul. If you're importing the part for $2.50 or $0.25 or *whatever* and realize it might happen with machines you own or operate, then who cares. But if you're selling the parts or using them in repairs then until someone runs the real-world numbers and hooks up equipment to gauge average reads/writes on various mpus and compares that to life expectancy ratings, how much can you really guarantee the lower endurance RAMTRON will last if you're selling it or upselling during repairs/servicing of machines. Just my 2 cents. I'll probably look into this some myself over the next month or two and see if I can get a way at gauging usage just out of curiosity if no one else has done anything by then.

Personally, I don't care.

Even if they only last 20 years rather than 37 years, I'll say I got my money's worth out of them.

And when they die, at least they won't leak anything on my circuit boards.

(and........says the Devil's Advocate, no one knows if those copier boards were ever installed into functioning machines. They could have been populated, burned and tested, and then sat around as unused inventory until liquidated. )

Sure I get that, I'm not surprised if 99% of the people buying them for $6 or $2.50 or $0.25 don't care at all if they only last 5 years or 10 years even. I'm purely interested in the technical part of the equation where instead of just guessing about how long these things might last, you put some facts and figures behind the numbers.

Maybe the lower endurance RAMTRON lasts 20 years. Or 10 years. Or 50 years. Or 3 years -- if left in a machine that's running 12-16 hours a day for years on end. Why not try to estimate it a bit better if we can? Should be simple enough to do I think. And if it makes no difference because of the speed the reads/writes are happening then awesome.. case closed Some people might care though.. the people buying chips for $30 because they're theoretically higher endurance and wondering if they're getting anything better over the used parts -- or the people buying used parts that are reselling it during board repairs or putting it in machines they service that are hours away with the idea they won't have to go back to replace the memory again in their lifetime.

So.. rather than continue blowing hot air, I'll just figure if I have some time over the winter I'll try and get some numbers on the stuff. No sense beating a dead horse on the subject. And if someone does it before me or already has that data -- awesome!

It would be great to have some real world data, I agree.

Don't be surprised when it far surpasses the manufacturer's rating.

-

Remember when everyone was cautioning you not to have a SSD (Solid State Drive) as your main drive? "Yeah SSDs are super fast, but you would not want one as your **boot** drive - you'll wear it out and lose your data!!!!". "Make sure Window's Swap File is not on your SSD!!!!!"

People still **advise** me of that "fact" when they see my laptop boot up to desktop in 4 seconds.

=

Then, one day "The Tech Report" took 6 different CONSUMER rated SSDs, turned off the drive leveling features and tried to rewrite them until they died. (two of the drives are still being tortured to this day, they just won't die).

They determined that it would take the average computer user 1000 years to rewrite a SSD to failure.

So no mater what the manufacturer rates the NAND rewrites at, most people's drives will die from lightning, cap failure or obsolescence before they physically wear their NAND out.

The only information I have is my TAF on location. It has an NVRAM pull that I bought from Andrew. It has been on location for a little over 9 months. It is typically on 12-14 hours/day. So far no issues. It would be interesting to determine approximately how many read/write cycles that is.

The Alltek Bally boards are often on location and left running 24/7.

They have lifetime warranty, so clearly Alltek is not worried that people are going to wear out the NVRAM.

Pretty sure those use SIMTEK where reads don't count against endurance due to it having it's own sram integrated. It may be a non issue regardless.