Power Struggle

For years, I've always known this day would come. I just never knew when. Or what it would be.

But then, lo and behold, I was greeted by this:

Can you tell what option should be in this picture?

A copy of Megaman Zero which I had recently picked up wasn't saving properly. At first, I assumed the cart must be damaged, or the Gameboy Player on the GC wasn't working right. This theory was supported when it did save okay a few times in my DS, but it lost the save later.

I was about to return the cart (I'd have to ship it back, at my own expense), when something occured to me. Is it possible this cart uses a battery?

It's always the one you least suspect

I would never have guessed, because battery-backed RAM was already almost totally phased out by 2000, and this game came out in 2002, but it turns out that a number of early GBA games actually do use batteries. And this one was totally drained, outputting a mere 0.3V instead of the 3V it's supposed to provide. And so, it was time for my first ever foray into battery changing.

First, I had to buy the battery. GBA games use CR1616s, which are a common type of watch battery, so buying one was no trouble (it cost me $6). The next step was to desolder the old battery, which is also not very difficult (though you want to go a bit easy on it, you don't want to fry the board).

Here's what the board looks like with no battery on it

(There are no more pictures because I was too busy soldering things)

The next step is to remove the leads from the battery. This requires some chiselling, but isn't too difficult. Then, the leads need to be hammered back into their original shape (thankfully, they're pretty malleable).

The next part is the really hard part, which is getting the leads on the new battery. Soldering to a battery is not easy in the first place (you put a little solder on the lead, a little on the battery, push the lead on top of the battery, then heat the lead), but in the case of a GBA game it's FAR harder than normal because the battery fits in the case only by the absolute slimmest of margins (see the photo of the open case above, there's a tiny slit cut in the top cover, that's for the lead, to give you an idea of how tight it is). If the leads aren't super tight to the battery, it's not going to fit.

There's a trick to this, which is to put a little piece of electrical tape over the rim of the battery where the top lead would touch the sides (you can't allow it to touch the sides, or you'll form a circuit between the top and bottom of the battery and it will short). With the tape there, there's no risk of the leads touching, and thus you can push the lead right to the edge rather than having to bend it up. I didn't realize this the first time and had to de-solder it, but you can learn from my experience.

Anyway, eventually the leads were on the new battery and it was ready to solder back to the board, this is comparatively easy. The case still didn't shut perfectly (it's still a touch too tall), but it does close and the game fits in the system, I consider that close enough.

If you were doing a game for a different system, you'd have more space, and you might be able to simply use electrical tape to put the leads on - GBA is not an easy one to start with. Also, apparently you can buy batteries that come with the leads on them, and this would cut out 75% of the work, just unsolder the old battery and solder in the new, easy as pie. I need to find out where you can get those from.

Anyway, so begins the moment of truth. The game starts up, and I'm able to complete the first level, that's a good sign.

But the real test is what happens after I turn it off

Success! My save is still there! And hopefully next time it will be easier!

And on the plus side, I played the first stage so much that I'm a total master of it now.

Does the S stand for Soldering?