also not a SC55 but I guess this is still the best thread for it... I pulled this off a 486 board today
so yeah CR2032 lithium cells can definitely leak it's not just the SC55 ^^ this one was from toshiba.

Ok guys, I'm going to open my SC55 as soon as I'm home.

2 questions:

1. Wouldn't the SC55 give a warning when the battery is low or gone? Thought I read something like that.
2. Will the SC55 operate fine without a battery? If so, I will leave it out altogether.

Thanks!

Erwin_Br wrote on 2021-05-16, 15:11:

Ok guys, I'm going to open my SC55 as soon as I'm home. […]
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Ok guys, I'm going to open my SC55 as soon as I'm home.

2 questions:

1. Wouldn't the SC55 give a warning when the battery is low or gone? Thought I read something like that.
2. Will the SC55 operate fine without a battery? If so, I will leave it out altogether.

Thanks!

- if you remove the battery you get a 1-sec message each boot that the battery is low
- it will work just fine for gaming reasons , I also did not put a battery back. but if you want it to hold some special setup/options for your studio to work with then obviously it will lose such settings. in a typical gaming system all that is irrelevant and the battery can be out with no issues

The Korg X5DR also has a soldered lithium CR2032 in it.

After a couple of years of knowing this thread existed, I finally got into mine to check. Thankfully no issues, but battery removed anyway so I never have to worry. Appreciate the heads up.

I was lucky enough to get an SC-55 MkII for a reasonable price (under 110€ including shipping), and thanks to this thread, I opened it up and checked the battery - and sure enough, the battery was leaky. That was a quick fix.

However, I noticed that one of the larger capacitors leaks as well, the one close to the heat sink near the back. I'm certainly no hardware electronics repair person, but I probably have to find someone to get that replaced before it kills the device. 😒

EDIT: After reading through the whole thread, it turns out that the brown stuff is most likely glue, e.g. here: Re: Have you opened your SC-55 to check the battery inside?
However, the residue at the top of the capacitor still looks a little suspicious, plus it looks like it's slightly bulged. I'll at least know to keep an eye on it.

Regarding leaving the battery out entirely, I've noticed the following: After I had it open and replaced the battery, it stayed completely silent. Demo songs still worked, but no MIDI signals arrived anymore. I then tried the secondary input (front MIDI connector) and that worked fine. I found Real sound canvas 55 MK2 midi in problem on Vogons, but it wasn't a connection problem. After fiddling with it a bit, I noticed that I had to swap MIDI-1 and MIDI-2 in the menu, and for that setting to be sticky, i.e. for MIDI-IN1 on the back to keep working, I need the battery. It's quite surprising behavior, but that's how my unit operates.

Yea that capacitor is definitely leaking at the top.
I would have it changed ASAP because it could be leaking at the bottom too and electrolyte is quite corrosive!

One more things to look out for: my "new" SC-55 sometimes rebooted for no apparent reason, and it once it did, it did so frequently.
I checked the power supply I got with the unit, and noticed that it was from a different brand (Technics) - and was only rated for 9V 300mA. The SC-55 MkII needs 600mA though.
So yeah - that's a bad idea.

Lesson learned: when you get a unit somewhere, make sure the power supply actually matches!

Had that happen with my Genesis 1 High-Definition console with a cheap 200mA power brick. Sonic the Hedgehog sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks. Got a 6V-12V 2.5A switching power brick, set it to 12VDC, and it runs well.