Very quick and easy… normally. Nothing went right in this video and I got burnt a few times… It just goes to show not every day is a good day to fix and enhance all things retro! This battery was either extremely stubborn or knew I had the wrong type of holder to install onto it. Enjoy my pain… you twisted monsters! :P

This time I was working on a Super Mario cartridge with an ordinary CR2032 battery soldered onto the PCB. The plan was to remove it and fit a replacement holder, with a BR2032 battery in mind. I’ve done this sort of thing before, so naturally I expected a fairly straightforward little job. Famous last words!

I started by adding a little fresh solder to help get the old joints moving, although the soldering iron had only just been switched on. The battery seemed determined to remain exactly where Nintendo put it. By this stage it was around nine o’clock on a Sunday night, and I was beginning to wonder whether my brain had decided to clock off before the rest of me.

Eventually the stubborn thing came loose. I checked the original battery orientation, with the positive connection on the right as I was looking at the board, and got ready for the new holder. Unfortunately, one look at the clearance inside the cartridge shell told me everything I needed to know. There was absolutely no hope of that arrangement fitting properly!

The holder sat much too high, leaving a rather ridiculous gap where the two halves of the cartridge were supposed to meet. So after all that soldering and carrying on, I had managed to remove the battery but not complete the upgrade. Another fine evening at the McRetro workbench!

SNES cartridges that use battery-backed SRAM rely on the battery to retain their save data while the cartridge is unpowered. If the old save matters, back it up before deliberately disconnecting the battery. As for this particular cartridge, I’ll have to find a holder with a better profile before giving the whole exercise another go.

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