Ethan Dicks wrote: Feh. Just take a Dremel to the casing of the old one, pray you don't hit the Li battery and then replace the battery and put some PVC tape over it. Simple, yet effective. I've seen a website about doing exactly this. Or you could just dunk it in MEK to dissolve the potting compound Dalsemi used, then remove the plastic cover and replace the battery. Again, replace the cover and tape it down. IIRC, Dalsemi used a CR2032 battery in the 1287. Later. -- Phil. philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/

Tothwolf wrote: Hmm... I'm thinking "Stuffed battery" and "Design fault". In that order. But then again, Dallas Semiconductor do have a reputation for some pretty strange design mistakes... I've heard of it being used to nuke potting compound. Should work on an RTC, but it'll probably rip up the screenprint on the caphat at the same time. I don't have any MEK, nor do I want any - a bit of hacking (in the literal sense) with a craft knife/Dremel should get the caphat off. Later. -- Phil. philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/

Tothwolf wrote: I doubt Dalsemi want anyone to replace the batteries, period. The problem is, the cover is manufactured with spacing "ribs" running the length of the cover. These have been embedded in what looks like ABS plastic or some form of potting compound. Said potting compound is resistant to hacking with a knife and also acetone. I drenched the thing in acetone and only succeeded in removing the screenprint. Admittedly, the acetone I used was not straight acetone, but "nail polish remover". Same here. Which is why I go *very* gently if I use a knife. Anyone want to try dunking a DalSemi RTC or NVRAM module in MEK or some other solvent? Later. -- Phil. philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/

--- Philip Pemberton <philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com> wrote: I've already done this sort of thing with a 48T02... I whittled away the epoxy at the nose of the chip, and exposed the battery leads. They were easy to break, separating the battery from the chip. Then I soldered on a 9V battery lead to the lower stubs of the connection, tacked the wires down to the front of the battery compartment as a strain relief, and put a lithium coin cell in a bag to insulate it in the SPARC case. What I did with the DS1287 was similar, but since I did not know where the battery was, I began by assuming I was going to sacrifice one to learn how they are put together. It seems that unlike the 48T02 and friends, which has 4 points of contact from the top and the bottom, the DS1287 has IC pins that go down into the motherboard and up, into the epoxy. One of the pins is the negative battery lead. I found that one first by scraping the epoxy off. It was a simple matter to expose the battery top and peel back the steel lead tacked to the battery and unsolder it from the pin. The positive lead proved to be more elusive. I never did locate it. Instead, not being aware that the insides of a battery were hideously toxic, I _did_ cut it open, wash out the chemicals and remove all but the outer shell from the epoxy. I then abraded the rim of the former battery, fluxed the bejeezus out of it and soldered a 9V battery lead to it and used the lithium cell from my 48T02 mod (having already received and installed geniune replacements for it from Mouser). If my digital camera (Apple QT150) had the close-up lens, I'd take pictures, but since it has about a 2' minimum distance and it's a 640x480 image with high compression, the pictures would be of limited use. So now, I guess, I can consider further destructive testing once I get the DS12887 installed. -ethan __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com