Storage and conservation of cartridge media

I too have been concerned about leaving batteries in cartridges over the long term. I won't be playing 99% of my collection and I need to figure out if I have to take an aggressive stance on removing the batteries from my cart collection.

As well, I'm wondering which systems have batteries in them I should remove? And are there batteries that are guaranteed not to leak that I could replace them with? Or should I leave them without batteries? I was hoping to find or generate a master list.

Dead batteries are one thing, but corrosion spreading to a circuit board and killing a cart is another. This should be a concern for those who collect sealed games, yes?

 

There's no such thing as a battery that won't leak, really. Especially if you don't want to hack the cart about. Don't forget, they usually use lithium batteries, which have a long life but will most likely leak eventually and it is nasty stuff.

 

Great link here, thanks

 

Hey guys.

The batteries in my Saturn and Dreamcast are dead and constantly ask me to set the time upon bootup.

I dont use these two consoles that much (the saturn rarely and the DC doesnt need a battery in it as all memory is stored to VMU) and was wondering should i just take the batteries out and not bother to replace them or should i replace them and run the risk of the things going kaput sometime?

 

the saturn one you'll have to take off and put a new one, the dreamcast one is rechargeable.

 

Is it worth replacing the saturn one? and also is there any chance of the dreamcast one going defective? it only keeps the time.

 

the staurn one is supposed to last 2-3 years. concerning the dreamcast one if you are concerned and are not going to use it for a long time, you can take it out i guess

 

This retr0bright gel seems to work fine without damaging the ABS plastic. It's not just any common bleach, TAED and UV light is also required for the wanted reaction to occur.

http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/