Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

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S. Thompson
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Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by S. Thompson »

I just actually did a little hack n' slash where I replaced the internal DC battery with a AAA battery holder. You can check out photos here (please ignore the sloppy soldering). The issue (as maybe you can see from the photos) is that I used NiMH rechargeables where the original DC battery was manganese lithium. I opened the DC back up tonight and things were a little toasty, so I removed the NiMH batteries.

My question is - is this problem occurring because the DC cannot charge anything other than lithium rechargeables? I'm obviously no electronics wizard, but it makes sense that it might not be able to properly charge the NiMH ones.

Any help would be appreciated. My assumption is that I will have to buy some new AAAs of the lithium variety. It's super easy to do and takes a total of 10-15 minutes (provided you are comfortable doing some soldering).

- Steve
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by S. Thompson »

So I threw some lithium rechargeables in and they still got kinda warm. I'm wondering if I should abandon all hope.

- Steve
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by cube_b3 »

I am fine with the built in batteries.

When I use my DC frequently they work.
If I give it a couple of week interval, they obviously die out.

At one point I would just turn my DC on for an hour every week, but it has been a few months since I moved to my new house and I haven't got around to hooking it up.
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by TheRedFox »

This is total speculation, but I wonder if the default battery is designed to recharge from a different amperage or voltage or something than your standard rechargeable battery. Is there any indication of this on the DCs circuit board? There's a lot of spots where it tells the voltage that's going to various solder terminals.
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by S. Thompson »

cube_b3 wrote:I am fine with the built in batteries.

When I use my DC frequently they work.
If I give it a couple of week interval, they obviously die out.

At one point I would just turn my DC on for an hour every week, but it has been a few months since I moved to my new house and I haven't got around to hooking it up.
Eventually, the original battery will die and not hold a charge anymore. This is where I am. :(

- Steve
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by cube_b3 »

can't they be replaced
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by S. Thompson »

cube_b3 wrote:can't they be replaced
You need to desolder the old one, so I just decided to solder on a battery holder and use a more common type of battery. Finding lithium rechargeable AAA batteries isn't as easy as I was hoping it'd be though...

- Steve
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by |darc| »

My suggestion would be to solder a diode or something in-line so that the Dreamcast no longer can charge the AAA batteries. Then just use standard alkalines. I doubt you'll have to replace them that often.
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Re: Replacing the Internal Battery with a AAA Holder

Post by nymus »

I soldered a li-2032 battery holder from an old PC motherboard and got a bunch of lir-2032s (recharageable l-2032) from ebay and it worked out quite nicely. I can easily replace a dead battery now. ;)
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