Ensoniq ESQ-1 Battery again

Synth Repair
1

Hi everyone,

My ESQ-1 is showing the message that the battery needs replacement. No problem. I can handle doing that.

  1. I contacted a mob here in Australia that carries batteries and they have told me that I can use a CR123A battery as a suitable replacement for the current BR-2/3A that is on the PCB.
    When I checked the specs, the original shows ~1200mAh and the CR123A shows ~1300mAh. Does this difference cause an issue?
  2. The other question I have is whether the solution that some people do when they need to do this is to solder in a battery holder so the battery can easily be changed in the future. The caution that I saw from someone on the internet many years ago is to not do this since if the battery came out of the holder for some reason, the last thing you would want is a battery moving around in between the boards and causing some sort of electrical discharge where you don’t want it.
    So 1) does that current figure matter? 2) holder or no holder?

Thanks everyone,
Michael.

2

I can’t answer on the specs question but I’ve never been concerned that a battery would fall out of the holder. That being said, I don’t move my keyboards around much. But if something happened that actually knocked out the battery I suspect I would have much bigger problems to deal with. :slight_smile: I would be perfectly comfortable using a battery holder in your case.

3

Thanks for your reply Matt. You’re right. I hardly move my keyboards around. I’ll look into the holder solution.

4

The higher number (1300mAh vs 1200mAh) is not a concern… that’s just the maximum power the battery can provide. No worries there at all.

5

You will find that the battery will die faster in a holder than when soldered in place. Take a look at just about any piece of battery powered electronics (remotes, boomboxes, etc) and what happens to the terminals one the batteries? Corrosion. If left long enough, that corrosion can eat away at your battery holder, meaning you’re going to have to unsolder something again anyway, so… get the correct part (ie with solder pins welded onto the battery) and solder it into the PCB.

6

Fair enough. That does make sense. A soldered joint has less to go wrong than an unsoldered one. I’ll get hold of the battery and solder it in.
Thanks for the reply re my Ah question as well.

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