I'm sure that if it was that easy it would have been done before.

It isn’t exposed because during manufacturing the pins of the IC package embedded in the clock “module” are bent up. Then the crystal and battery are soldered to the bent up pins and the whole thing is potted in resin.
That is why some of the pins are seemingly missing. You can also see this in some other YouTube video where the resin is dissolved and the inner structure becomes clear. I forgot at the moment which channel it was.

digistorm wrote on 2024-09-07, 13:05:

It isn’t exposed because during manufacturing the pins of the IC package embedded in the clock “module” are bent up. Then the crystal and battery are soldered to the bent up pins and the whole thing is potted in resin.
That is why some of the pins are seemingly missing. You can also see this in some other YouTube video where the resin is dissolved and the inner structure becomes clear. I forgot at the moment which channel it was.

Alright, thanks for the info. I guess I'll have to drill into the dallas battery and solder it from there then.

I did find a video where someone claims that one pin of the battery is on a real pin of the chip and you only have to drill one hole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBvw1TLHyqM

If you drill the hole, consider making it big enough to clip off the old battery, otherwise you will drain the new one through it.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-09-07, 15:14:

I did find a video where someone claims that one pin of the battery is on a real pin of the chip and you only have to drill one hole.

The negative side of the battery (at pin 16) is connected to the standard ground (at pin 12), so no need to drill that hole. The positive side of the battery (at pin 20) is not available from outside, so drilling is required. There are mainboards that actually provide an option for a CR2032 holder (e.g. the Shuttle HOT433) that connects to pin 20, so if you drill the hole there and attach a pin, you can power the Dallas chip from the board. I managed to drill or grind a trench at pin 20, break the connection to the internal battery and solder a pin pushed from the backside of the board to the Dallas module without desoldering it from the board.