Raystar 112LP Missing Battery

[Capt.Don]

My Raystar 112LP GPS is probably 14 years old and takes a long time to acquire a satellite fix. The common cause of this is a dead internal battery CR2032. When I opened the unit, to my surprise, the battery and battery holder were missing from the board. If you look at my attached picture, the bottom center at the edge of the board (the 2 big solder points) there should be a metal holder enclosing a CR2032 battery. I suspect the previous owner attempted to replace the battery and broke the metal holder.

I'm trying to figure out where the battery holder is attached to the board. From yachting and boating forum, Raystar 112 LP battery, it is clear that the battery positive connects to the left solder point. Common sense would imply that the battery negative connects to the right solder point. I'm not sure.

Anyone have experience with these and knows or can look where the other side of the battery holder is attached to the board? If I can find the battery positive and negative points on the board, I can solder a CR2032 with solder tabs and have this as good as new!

Thanks
Don

[hellosailor]

Don-
Raymarine (Raytheon, FLIR, whatever the name is this month) may have docs in their archives to show that.
Personally, I'd suggest getting a battery holder (Radio Shack, Newark Electronics, DigiKey, Mouser) since the battery may only last a year or two and then you'd be soldering again.
You might also consider that unit probably has a 2nd generation GPS chip in it. A new GPS would be 4th generation, much better sensitivity, faster fix times, and use WAAS position corrections, which would have been rare 14 years ago. Some are even ready for the Russian, Chinese, and EU systems, which are coming online now. So if you can't find out where the battery connects to...it isn't a total madness to think about replacing it.

[Capt.Don]

I'm not sure a separate battery holder will fit, but that is surely an option. Certainly one of the batteries with solder tabs can be used, wrap in heat-shrink and a bit of glue to the board. The claim is these batteries last between 5 and 10 years (I've seen references to both). It is pretty easy to open the GPS (2 big and 3 little phillips screws).

Other than the yachting and boating forum, I haven't found any technical info as to where the battery is connected to the board. Now that I know there should be a battery, I might be able to see where the holder was broken off from the board - hopefully there will be remaining holder metal bits in the solder points. I'll try to check this tomorrow.