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SSV (Sammy Seta Visco) ROM board battery function

adgenet

adgenet

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I just picked up a new board (Pachinko Sexy Reaction... Don't judge me!), and it's on the SSV platform which I've never dealt with before.
I tested it out and everything works fine, but I'm a bit worried about the NiCd battery on the ROM board.

The battery was sitting at 0.8V when I got it, and after running the game for a while, it will charge to 3.4ish volts, and quickly drop to 2.something while powered off.
To me this means the battery on it's way out. It's not leaking ,but the date code is from 1998, and as we all know, batteries definitely don't last forever.

Does anybody know if these batteries on SSV boards are suicide batteries?
I'm assuming the answer is no, due to the fact that it still worked fine at 0.8V, however, I hesitate to play around with it and accidentally kill it.
This game has no score saving or test menu options so I'm pretty sure it must have some function.
I am thinking about separating the SSV and ROM board and looking at the battery traces to see where they go, but I wanted to check if anybody had any information.
Japanese sites have no info about the batteries, and a quick google search showed nothing as well other than some old posts asking the same question.

Photo below. it's the neon green cylinder. Yuasa 50mAh 3.6V NiCad.
Appreciate any and all thoughts or suggestions.
Could the MAME source code have hints?

_MG_8768.jpg
 
A quick look at the traces show that the battery runs through some diodes and a resistor, and ends up somehow, with a battery voltage of 2V, putting 4V or so on pin 28 of the Sharp LH5168D-10L chip below it (which according to the datasheet is VCC). I guess the question really is then, what is stored here? and what happens if the data is lost?

_MG_8769.jpg
 
adgenet said:
Does anybody know if these batteries on SSV boards are suicide batteries?
Click to expand...
They are not, I've safely removed them from everyone of my SSV boards that came equipped with one;' which includes both of my Pachinco Sexy Reaction PCBs :D

these definitely leak and definitely cause damage. I have a patch wire on my PSR2 because the battery leaked and damaged a trace resulting in graphical issues until I patched it :(

it's only there to save test mode settings and high scores.
 
twistedsymphony said:
adgenet said:
Does anybody know if these batteries on SSV boards are suicide batteries?
Click to expand...
They are not, I've safely removed them from everyone of my SSV boards that came equipped with one;' which includes both of my Pachinco Sexy Reaction PCBs :D
it's only there to save test mode settings and high scores.
Click to expand...
Great! Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend with my soldering iron.
I really appreciate the info! Sounds like your reply to this thread will be the first known documentation of that fact.
 
I guess the next question is... is there a non-volatile equivalent to the LH5168D-10L?
 
The datasheet claims it's "pin compatible with 64K bit EPROM" so there must be something out there. I'm not exactly sure what they're referring to as it seems like SRAM and and EPROM usually serve different functions in designs.
That said, how useful a non-volatile one would be though if it's just for scores and test settings?
Maybe the battery could be replaced with a supercap?They have their faults (leaks as seen on the Naomi, eventual capacity loss as seen on the CPS2 sound section), but I like them more than Nicads.
Depends on the current draw of the LH5168D I guess.
 
the point of a non-volatile replacement is that it would function the same as an original board with battery... without the need for a battery.
 
Interesting find. Sexy Reaction will just be batteryless due to no score or settings, but maybe I'll pick up an SSV game that has scores and test options to try one of those out.
 
I think you'll find that most SSV games have completely different "ROM Boards". the Pachinko games and the Mahjong Hyper Reaction games I believe are the only ones with this SRAM setup.

most of the games don't have a battery at all, and the other ones that do use a coin-cell and a different backup configuration.

FWIW, I own about 15 different SSV games :)
 
adgenet said:
I couldn't wait until the weekend.
Confirmed working!
_MG_8773.jpg
Click to expand...
My Storm Blade is the USA version and came with a Sony CR2032. I replaced with a new battery and it’s still not saving high scores so no idea what it’s used for. Strange…
\o/.k.
 
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