VOGONS


First post, by Kordanor

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Heyho,
I got a board which looks like its a Chaintech 486 sle m103, manual posted here: Re: Chaintech motherboard manuals:

I removed the internal battery which already started leaking and wanted to add an external battery instead.
From the manual I can see that its supposed to go into J4 (4 pins).
I got some external battery pack of 3 rechargeable AA Batteries as replacement and put that onto some speaker header.

I got a couple of questions now:
-Will these batteries work? I dont know the original battery anymore
-What way do I need to insert the plug? Seems like only 1 and 4 needs to be connected (same as the speaker connection). But which side is positive? How can I find out?
-Is there any jumper I need to adjust?

Thank you!

Kordanor

The attachment j4s.jpg is no longer available

Reply 1 of 4, by Kordanor

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Nobody got a bit of advice on what to do here?

Reply 2 of 4, by maxtherabbit

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Use a multimeter to find out which side has 0 ohm continuity to ground. That's the - battery terminal. + is on the opposite side. The 2 center pins are N/C as you suspected.

Reply 3 of 4, by Cuttoon

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

greetings!

That GIF you linked to is much better than nothing in general, but at least "fairly mainstream" boards like this one will have a "real" manual.
Therefore, did you consider googeling the search string "chaintech 486sle"?
Because that is what i found:
https://archive.org/details/chaintech-486-sle … age/n7/mode/2up

Page 15, on the right: There's your pinout.

If not for that archived manual, an approach would have been:
a) look for a somewhat similar board by the same manufacturer, they don't reinvent the wheel all the time.
or
b) assume that it's a connector like most of the others, where Vcc is the first and ground is the last pin - use a multimeter or squint at the traces to confirm which is which.

Concerning your questions:
- Some motherboards will have a jumper to select onboard vs. external battery, but apparently not this one.
- With some you'll need to make sure not to damage a non-rechargeble battery by connecting it instead of a rechargable one, maybe by adding a diode in line. But not this one, I'd say.
- Manual asks for 4.5 up to 6 Volts which is rather strange als most only use 3 V and most battery packs for motherboards are for three cells, which only is about 4.5 for fresh non-rechargeble or roughly 3.9 for NiMH cells.
But try it with three cells and it probably will work. Or get two lithium buttons like cr2032 in line for 6 V.
There are rather expensive lithium based AA batteries, if you want a long time solution.

Have fun!

I like jumpers.

Reply 4 of 4, by Kordanor

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Sorry for not replying sooner. Had no option to test for a while.
I used both of your advices. Checked in the manual and them also used to multimeter to confirm that it's correct, and then tried it. And it works!
Unfortunately I stumbled over other issues then, but thats a different story. ^^
Thanks again!