From my ancient alpine head unit:

Ever since I got it its always lost its settings when you removed it from power for too long. I stripped it to find out why....It turns out there is a Lithium button back up cell. Unfortunately it was spot welded to its connectors. So I had to desolder it and remove it and connectors together:



So to Maplin for a new holder and new battery, (yes, soldered in properly Chris, not a screw connector in sight ), removable this time if necessary but TBH I'll probably have thrown this radio away by the time the new battery goes flat again.





Has anybody seen this stuff before, where the manufacturer has just decided to make things needlessly complicated? Mind you nowadays I would think all the memory stuff would be stored in flashRAM so this problem doesn't arise.

Anybody other examples?

perhaps its simply like that because the majority of cars probably only have power missing for about 10 hours of a 10 year life?

True, but this radio is from the era where if you wanted security you took the whole radio out, not just the front panel as nowadays.

Not that you'll want to hear it mate, but Maplins will sell cells with terminals spotted on, like the old one. Like the conversion though, will save hassle if you want to swap it again.

AND you proved you can solder (and quite well by the looks!!)

Chris_C wrote: you proved you can solder

Well after a fashion

You should see my Megasquirt board. A real, "don't do it like this" effort. All working though, which is the main thing