Dreamcast-Talk.com

Replaced another battery in some ol dreamcasts. No more bugging me about the date every time I play a game! Don't get the battery with attached pins then you have to solder to replace it again! I put a vertical socket instead makes it easy!

If you're planning on replacing the battery yourself.
Use RECHARGEABLE lir 2032 batteries ONLY!

I have a big bag of these sockets, so I might offer to people who don't want or can't do it themselves can send me just the board I can put a socket and/or battery in for you and send it back. charge like 5 or 10$. maybe.
I would need to get more batteries. maybe I could do the LED too but I would need to get some more as well I have a few around.

Here's some pics!

You can also replace the button battery with 2 rechargeable AA batteries taped together, which would probably be my fix of choice, as AAs will have a higher capacity and thus last longer.

I'm a little surprised that nobody has figured out a way to disable the DC's ability to charge the clock battery so that you could just drop 2 normal D cells in there to keep the clock going for a few years without ever having to charge the batteries.

Well that's pretty ghetto =P ahah. I like doing things the right way no mess. And without any real demand from something as small as the clock, the battery is going to last for about the full life of the battery anyway which they would both last 10+ years either way. I still had one Dreamcast sitting here that still had enough power in the original battery here 15 years later!

Just dropped a AAA battery holder in there the other day. The clock resetting itself bothered me a lot more than it probably should have. To the point of putting me off from playing my Dreamcast. I may be too much of a stickler for such things. 0.0'. Anyways, I'm definitely going to look into one of these battery holders. Definitely looks MUCH cleaner than my solution. :p

I didn't realise the dreamcast battery was rechargable. Are you sure? I have a PAL DC and fitted a socketed cell battery holder aswell. But I put in a non-rechargable, I thought I would have checked.

Yes, it's rechargeable, but the DC only tries to charge the battery when the system is on (which is why the clock needs setting if you leave the DC off for too long). If you use a non-rechargeable battery, it may leak or explode when the DC is powered, because the system will be trying to charge a battery that isn't meant to be charged. Never use a non-rechargeable battery for the clock.