VAX 4000-200 Maintenance

[Glen Slick]

On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 1:35 PM, william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> wrote:
> It was a pain to take the M7626 apart, I did think about replacing but
> decided I don't mind entering in the date whenever I boot up the system vs.
> worrying about the future.
>

Removing 6 screws and a lock nut on the M7626 KA660 H3602 console
panel to remove the PCB so you can remove the battery now is a lot
easier and better than doing it later after the battery has started
leaking and corroding things and then trying to repair the damage.

I was just looking at a system with an M7626 KA660 a couple of days
ago and the network connectivity through the H3602 AUI Ethernet port
was very flaky. The H3602 had some signs of leaking battery corrosion
that I had previously tried to clean. I swapped that H3602 panel with
another one that also had some signs of leaking battery corrosion and
that one seemed to work OK, at least for now. Trying to correct
whatever is damaged on the bad H3602 panel will be a pain. It's not
worth the risk of leaving those NiCad battery packs in any old DEC
gear. It's not that much of a pain to set the date and time every time
I actually get around to powering on the systems.

The early VAX 3100 desktops have those same evil NiCad battery packs.