3902 battery

[smoothgrh]

Hi everyone,

OK, a newbie question: does the battery on a 3902 board drain at the same rate whether you play the game or not?

In other words, does having the game powered on affect the battery—either helping to charge it or (I assume not) causing it to drain faster?

Thanks!

[smoothgrh]

Crickets!

 

[Tilt]

When the machine is on the CMOS RAM memory and real time clock are powered by the power supply.  When it is off the battery provides power to them.    The battery is non-rechargeable so it's never recharged.  Technically the battery is only used when the machine power is off.   The memory and real time clock draw a minuscule amount of power and the battery can provide power to them for years.
Some people seem think that if you shut off the machine with zero credits that will help the battery longer, but that's not true.  It still requires power to hold a 0 in memory and the memory stores much more information than just the amount of credits.


 

[smoothgrh]

Thanks Tilt!

That's the information I was looking for. So it sounds as if pulling games off the shelf and playing them every now and then really doesn't make a difference in battery life.

 

[Tilt]

Nope, won't do a thing for the battery.