Turtlerock Forum

To all Turtlerockers, this is your annual reminder to not become a member of the Expensive, Pointless Repair Bill club and to go and check and if need be replacing the batteries in all of your gear - pedals, drum machines, tuners, flashlights, FX units, bedroom toys, guitars, Nerf guns or whatever before they leak all through your Japanese built, pre CBS takeover vintage delay pedal or become a 9V blob glued into the battery compartment of your Maton.

This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your usual programme.

Nice reminder.

Unfortunately I already have a stack of repairs pending, albeit not caused by old batteries.

Hey Chris, I have some workshop time available from next week onwards if you need anything done. I finally have time now to start taking on some repairs.

Yep, first thing I do with anything with a battery compartment is check it and remove the battery - I hate the things. Always use a plugpack and if it has no adapter input, I mod it to.

Steve, don't suppose you'd be keen to take on that PPG I have here? I'm sure you'd be the best person in the country to check it over.

So Steve - does this mean FX unit's with memory?
What type of batteries leak?
All types?

I have never seen lithium button cells leak, (the little silver disk type) which are usually what are in FX units, the ones that create carnage are usually NiCd rechargeables and ordinary AA, AAA, C, D, and 9V batteries. The lithium button cells in most FX units are pretty safe.

Thanks for that Steve - I needed to double check, it would not be fun pulling apart my FX each year - not that Ive ever done it.
Except on my Sony DP7, which just stops when the battery dies, seems to only last a few years.

Have seen a lot of lithium button cells leak. Some products seem more prone than others. Often they do irreparable damage to a CPU board

Milo