My SE/30's battery BLEW UP!

[MinerAl]

I took my old workhorse SE/30 out for a nostalgic look the other day. Took the back off to make sure nothing was amiss, and the little 3.6V 1/2AA battery had gone kablammo. The acid left a big rust/burn mark on the underside of the chassis and floppy box.



Any chance I can clean this board up and get a working SE/30 back? I had a backup machine, and the HD was fine, but the acid ate the positive tip in the battery holder, and I'm afraid the floppy and the caps, chips, ROM and PDS might be fried too.



Advice?

 

[uniserver]

what happens when you plug it in and turn it on?

 

[MinerAl]

Didn't want to try for fear of making it worse. I thought I'd at least clean it with alcohol and a toothbrush before I tried.

It'll work without the battery right?

 

[uniserver]

yeah, none of my se/30 have batteries in them, for just this reason.

sounds good clean it up and and try it, might just work.

 

[volvo242gt]

It's probably saveable. I've had much worse, as seen in the Maxell exploding PRAM battery thread.

-J

 

[James1095]

Looks like you may have caught that one just in time. Give the motherboard a good scrub in hot soapy water and set it aside to dry. Clean the bottom of the floppy drive and any other parts. You can probably find a new metal chassis from an SE/30 that was parted out for other reasons. The fluid from the battery is highly corrosive, get it all off of anything containing metal.

 

[Scott Baret]

Any chance you remember what brand of battery it was? It seems Maxells are universally regarded as bad. The only kind I've had leak is a black battery, I think it said "Enercell" or something like that on it. (I have a ton of them in Pittsburgh and can check when I'm home next week).

The blue ones and the purple/black ones seem to stay in one piece easily no matter the age. I also have one that's green that I got last year. Bought it at some medical supply warehouse for $3.50.

 

[tt]

The blue ones and the purple/black ones seem to stay in one piece easily no matter the age.

Someone posted a failure of those here as well. The brand name is Tadiran. Based on what I saw on their website, they seem to be into making high reliability batteries for military applications, so I would be a little more confident in using those, but as we have seen, any of them can fail especially if they are not in a climate controlled environment. I am not sure exactly which model was standard for Apple, but Tadiran has a high temperature version (TLH-5902 up to 125C) which I am guessing equals higher reliability, but has a lower capacity.

 

[MinerAl]

It was a purple/black Tadiran. I went through all my compacts (9) and took the same battery out of all of them. They were all that same brand. Only my favorite machine's had blown up, naturally. But now I only have to worry about cap leaks :-/

 

[volvo242gt]

Yeah, the photo I posted in the Maxell thread was of a Tadiran... Had another Tadiran in one of my other Macs that was getting stinky, so pulled it and chucked it. Knew it was only a matter of time before it, too, would've exploded.

-J

 

[tt]

Yeah, the photo I posted in the Maxell thread was of a Tadiran...

Was that SE/30 or the logic board stored outside or in a garage/basement?

 

[MinerAl]

Mine has been in one air conditioned room or another its whole life with me (15-16 years). Some of my rescues were obviously left in a barn for years, but their batteries were annoyingly fine.

 

[James1095]

Any number of things can cause these batteries to leak. The Maxells do seem to be the worst, but as we've seen, others can too. I recommend checking the voltage yearly and replace any that are below 3V. Given the damage they can do vs the relatively low cost of the batteries, it's really not a bad idea to change them out every 5 years or so. All the ones I've seen leak were more than 10 years old.

 

[volvo242gt]

^Yeah 5-10 years is a good plan. Strangely enough, tho, one of my SE's still has the original black Varta battery in it with the leads. Still keeps time.

Was that SE/30 or the logic board stored outside or in a garage/basement?

The SE/30 was, from what I gather, stored in a very dry basement for a few years, but had been used by the Group Health Cooperative hospitals in the Seattle area previously. Battery was original, though, so ~23 years old.

-J

 

[James1095]

Why risk it? If the battery leaks, damage will be done before you realize anything has happened. If you've got a 10+ year old battery in a machine, yank it out regardless of its state, it's a ticking time bomb.

 

[uniserver]

yeah i guess it wouldn't hurt to spend a saturday and go through all your machines and change out all the batteries, or just remove them all at the least.

that way you will not get a surprises some odd years from now.

 

[James1095]

I pulled all the batteries from mine and installed new ones in a few machines that I use semi-regularly. I suspect we'll start to see a lot more old Macs wrecked by leaking batteries in the next few years. There must still be thousands of them stashed away in closets, basements and garages.

 

[uniserver]

so did you fire it up, does it still work?

 

[MinerAl]

It's taking a nice alcohol bath at the moment.

I'll toothbrush it and let it dry a couple days before I try turning it on.