NES Zelda II Cartridge Battery Holder Install. Cheap, Easy, & Neat.

Recently I've been getting back into playing old NES games. Zelda II is a game I've never played much & after reading about what an awesome game it actually is and watching gameplay videos on youtube I decided it was time to start the quest. I got one of my old Zelda II carts out & popped it in my nes & it still had games saves, and still saved as well, but..........was I really going to spend hours progressing through the game depending upon a battery dated 02-89 that should have went bad around 94 according to Nintendo, I think not.

Now it was time to decide what method I was going to use to remedy this problem & as with many problems there were a few options. Ultimately the option I chose was to take a CR2032 battery holder out of my first PC from the late 90's since it's just a parts machine now anyways. This way I could easily use any CR2032 battery I needed & easily switch it out in the future if I ever decide to beat the game again.

First step was to desolder the battery holder from the computer motherboard. I let my soldering iron get nice and hot & used a desolder pump to suck away as much solder as possible as I heated it. Finally I had enough removed so as I could use my needle nose pliers to wiggle the holders tabs off bringing the holder with them.

Second step I used my NES cartridge game bit to remove the 3 screws from the back of the cart exposing the inwards of this electronic master piece.

Third step is to get the old battery removed. Note the date on the battery of 02-89. Hard to believe it was still working. Desoldering pump came it quite handy here because there was a pretty good amount of solder holding the tabs in place. Originally I thought of using the tabs and simply trying to pry the battery off the tabs but they seem to be welded in place. I even attempted to slide a knife blade under them acting as a wedge to pop the welds but they would not give & actually buldged the old battery housing out under all the pressure so I saw that this method was not what I wanted anyways. I proceeded to remove as much solder as possible with desoldering pump as I heated it up with my iron. Once I had most of the solder sucked away I used my needle nosed pliers to wiggle the tabs until they broke free of the older & pulled it off the cartridge board.

Fourth step I soldered the - and + wires to the cartridge board & then soldered them to the battery holder tabs. Be sure not to mix up the wires. The cartridge board has the + side clearly marked which the wire soldering to it will run to the tab on the holder that makes contact with the shiny + marked side of the battery that is visible when placed in holder. The bottom of the battery is the negative. I recommend doing this before installing the battery because the solder will heat the battery which could destroy or severely impact it's life. Once I had the holder soldering in place I bent the tabs to the side on the holder & placed it in the cartridge housing making sure all fit good.

Fifth step I figured out exactly where I wanted the holder to be doing a test fit & I then installed my battery. I used the Sunbeam CR2032's which I purchased at dollar tree 2 for a dollar. I thought of gluing the holder in place but since I might need to take the cartridge board out again to clean I decided just using black electrical tape to hold the wires in place would be good enough since the battery holder is large enough that it can't move anyways & it was far less messy than trying to use hot glue or having to wait for another type of glue to dry. I then put my cartridge back together & now it was time to test it out.

I slid the cartridge in & powered on the NES & created my save file. I played the game until I died & then saved. I powered off the console (as I held the reset button as the manual states) & powered it back on & my save was present. Now I'm confident my journey will be well protected for many years to come.