question about replacing batteries in a board

[pudluther]

i am going to be putting in some black light carpeting in my arcade in the next week or so. while i've got my cabinets all pulled out, i plan to replace the batteries in the boards (the little BR2325 3V deals). some of them are getting up there in age & some of the batteries are not working anyway, so they need to come out.

my question is this:

is it recommended to have the machine powered down when i replace the battery (which would mean i lose all the saved data, i'm assuming)?

or is it OK to remove/replace the battery while everything is running?

obviously, i'd rather keep all of my high scores if possible, but i'd rather not damage anything...



thanks.

[Kevin Mullins]

Not sure exactly which boards you are doing.......

But typically if you are changing a battery you want to do it with the power ON.
That way the power supply will take over and hold the memory while the battery is out.
(this is never an absolute guarantee though)

Be sure to read up on these just to be sure you don't have any that you need to take special precaution with.
http://www.arcadecollecting.com/dead/dead.html
Once again, if you have power on the entire time you change a battery you shouldn't have any kind of memory loss.