Our very nice friends at Chads Arcade sent over a couple of their Defender High Score save chips so that I could test them on our Defender machines at Skywire

And these kits are great – replacing the need to have the 3 x AA batteries, or CR2032 battery conversions on the main motherboard by a static DRAM FRAM memory chip, that permanently saves your high scores

To install, depending on your Motherboard, you need to remove the existing PCD5101 CMOS RAM chip as shown in these photos

New static RAM chip and adapter board
New static RAM FRAM chip and adapter board
PCD5101 removed, and optional socket should your motherboard need one for the new chip
PCD5101 removed, and optional socket should your motherboard need one for the new chip
Install here
Install here
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and once installed you can save your Highscores like normal without ever (*well not for a very very long time) having to worry about your batteries going flat or leaking all over your Motherboard and ruining your PCB with battery acid – Happy Days!

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You can find Chad at chadsarcade@gmail.com and on UKVAC if you want to get one for your Defender too 🙂