Two CR2032 batteries read 5.97V but Kitchen Scales show 'LO'

Many did and the extruded residue destroyed many motherboards.

Some laptops use LR2032, having maybe 3 day capacity for RTC timekeeping.

Even those cells eventually wear out, and need replacement with the same part number "LR2032". The CR2032 is not to be placed in such a laptop.

If the battery pack in the laptop, is left in place in the cavity, then the laptop battery keeps the LR2032 charged, and you can have accurate time for months. It is when you unplug the laptop, remove the removable battery pack, that the LR2032 runs down and accurate time is lost.

As a result, some laptops do have the desired ("rechargeable") scheme.

But since the two cells types, depend on the correct support circuit being on the motherboard, the end-user cannot simply slap in either of the two and get correct operation. Only the designed type, may be placed in the machine. A CR2032 replaced with a CR2032.

NiCd used in this way, are notorious for spilling electrolyte on the PCB and eating the copper tracks. You do not want NiCd in there. Not really. And if an alkaline circuit setup was used (four AA), those had better not be Duracell brand (which corrode and leak, damaging battery cell contacts). Some other alkaline brands, die with a little more grace and dignity. And don't damage your goods.

Paul

For people who restore old pinball machines, the NiCd corrosion damage is a curse.

The "high score" was stored in a Mostek RAM chip and the RAM had battery-backing with NiCd. This allowed a pinball machine to be moved from one arcade to another, without losing the high score. The particular RAM used, had pretty decent performance for the time, only sucking microamps when not being clocked. The same chip was used in a number of designs (copy-cat design). But the design of the NiCd portion, left a lot to be desired. They would trickle charge the NiCd string, causing them to ooze. Nobody knew how to make a precision charger for the job.

Some modern PCB fabrications, have decent passivation over the copper, to provide a measure of protection to corrosion. The PCBs back in the early pinball era, would not have all the cleverness some of the modern PCBs have. For example, microwave oven PCBs can have conformal coatings on them, to protect from cooking moisture and popcorn salt.

The PCBs I used to make in the kitchen sink (no, you DONT pour the ferric chloride down the sink!), had no protection and were bare copper. Just corrosion from elements in the air, doomed such PCBs to a ten year max lifetime. You don't even need NiCd juice to ruin an amateur PCB. I used to "draw" designs on double sided copper blanks, using "india ink" and a suitable pen. The largest double sided PCB I ever made, was the PCB for a keyboard. It took several hours, with a strong light source, to get the keyboard key contact prongs, to align with the bloody holes. But I got that sucker in there and soldered, and it worked. The keyboard does not use a conventional interface, and the signals travel over a ribbon cable.

I used to buy a tube of same-sized drill bits, because of the number of bits snapped off while hand-drilling the blank PCB first with the hole pattern (I didn't even own a mini-drill-press). Drawing the etch pattern on the PCB, comes after you drill the pilot holes. The home method does not have PTH, so the soldering aspect is yet another adventure. The drill bits are fancy enough, they come with names like "#58". Rather than adverts quoting actual diameter. The chuck on a hand drill does not close tightly enough to hold those bits, so they have to be custom-wrapped with the old cello tape, and "formed" in the chuck, until the bit was centered.

The stupid stuff... we used to do in the name of science :-)

Paul

Your computing needs must have been very simple to make do with one of those :-). 3 inch floppy !!!!

Your memory is failing. The PC1512 used 5.25 inch floppies (360kB, also later 1.2MB).

You are thinking of the PCW8256.

Is that safe?

In message <10jbsqn$1ghtt$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 20:05:43 on Sat, 3 Jan

Rubbish!!! The PC1512 had 5.25" floppies, just like the IBM PC, and while we were at it we made it twice as powerful as the machine being cloned.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 20:41:01 on Sat, 3 Jan

The PCW8256 did indeed have 3" floppies [180kB per side, or 720kB double-sided], partly for backwards compatibility with the CPC series, but mainly because it would be two years in the future before 3.5" floppies were available as a mass market product, and of course 5.25" floppies would have added about 50% to the build cost and 25% to the machine's case size.

I was wondering if you'd jump in, but I did correct him earlier! And thought of you...

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 10:03:15 on Sun, 4 Jan

Of course, the "Computing Need" is quite disjoint from the size of the media, because 3" floppies are entirely plug-compatible with 5.25" [another reason for choosing them, because the quirky 3.5" at the time, weren't] so you can crunch numbers just as easily with a genuine IBM PCC that has a 3" floppy, as one with the 5.25"

And people did that, so they could develop software for the CPC/PCW on an IBM PC, then trivially transfer to 3" media to use.

Well I bought a couple of Renata 2032's at Worthing Wednesday market but when I got home, I noticed 'made in PRC' on the back. :-( I always used Renata silver oxide SR44's in my film cameras before, because they were Swiss made.

Seems that most button cells are now made in China (limited adherence to pesky pollution regulations and other obstacles to mass cheap production).

Anyway, Kitchen scales are much better, still a slight drift, but for kitchen stuff not an issue.

Andrew

GP and LIDL both seem to be PRC. Just noticed the Lidl 2032s only have a 3 year shelf life. 10 years for the GPs.

Reviews at:

Thanks for the link. Ikea Plattboj appear to have been discontinued, sadly

From my ragtag assortment ...

Boots : japan Hitachi-Maxell : japan Panasonic : indonesia Amazon : china Energiser : china

Their original smarthome devices used CR2032 but are now on "last chance to buy" status, the newer devices use AAA, so presumably Ikea no longer sell anything that takes coin cells?