CHECK or REMOVE your old BATTERIES

[jazzcomp]

Here are the scans of the instructions. The batteries are in the rear of the box that holds the LED for the Matrix.


You need to mess about with the Matrix box and pull it out a bit as you get to this step when changing from robot to vehicle mode.

There is a way to take the box out, but it's not in the instructions, and my MP1 & 4 are packed away somewhere, sadly I just don't have the time to mess about with them ATM. If I do, pics will come as I have to check the batteries in MP4 I guess.

I can't remove the box it just slides in both directions. Do you forcefully take that out? Or jsut try to insert a small screwdriver so that the top of the box is kept where it is and the bottom just falls out?

[Arcee]

I can't remove the box it just slides in both directions. Do you forcefully take that out? Or jsut try to insert a small screwdriver so that the top of the box is kept where it is and the bottom just falls out?

For my MP 01 & 04, I forcefully pulled them out.

But you need to do that with caution; the battery box itself won't be much affected. But you need to be aware of the parts around it: the chest doors, the flip boards above and under it, etc. Make sure there's nothing in the way when you pull it.

And after you've got the batteries out just forcefully push it back in. That small red cap over the rivet is actually quite tough.

The trick is to do it quick in one swift pull/push. (And it doesn't require much strength to do it really, so no need to pull it too hard. As long as the direction is vertical and straight it should be fine.)

With my MP 01, because it was my first experiment, after I've reinstalled the battery box it appeared to be a bit loose, and fell out itself. But there's no damage, and I just put it back again. I worked on my MP 04 more experienced and everything went perfectly, the same issue didn't recur.

[griffin]

I was finally able to resurrect the voice-box that came with BotCon 2001 Arcee by scraping away enough of the corrosion, and hooking up a new battery. That was one thing I really feared I had lost, as there was significant battery leakage on that one, and they were only button-cells too.
It was great to hear Arcee's voice once again, after 12 year since I'd heard it last.

[TAAUBlaster]

After seeing this thread on the front page, I had completely forgotten about the bettiers in the MP figures

I went through all my storage boxes this afternoon to find the MP's that used batteries. All of them had started to corrode But luckily I think they will be ok with a little cleaning. Also found that my MP Ultra Magnus has yellowed really bad

[SofaMan]

Like April Fools day which has become 'Change the battery in your fire alarm day.'

Lets make November the 1st National Toy Battery change day!!

+1. Doesn't hurt at all to have an annual reminder to check these things.

I've just been around and actually taken all of the batteries out of my TFs, triggered by reading this thread. Only 2 were leaking slightly, with some slight scaling on the contacts, but nothing serious. A quick scrub with some steel wool clears it right up.

I was somewhat surprised with the 1.1kg of batteries I ended up with after going through all my TFs!