RTC battery on the alix2d3 board

One of the most common problems with the alix boards, in their standard configuration, is the lack of a built-in RTC battery: every time the board is powered off then the clock synchronization gets lost.

This may lead to problems on some distributions, e.g.: one common problem with Zeroshell is that some of the installed certificates are retained invalid and regenerated.

Rather than playing around with the startup scripts, the best and definitive solution is to solder a battery: every alix board has got a footprint and terminals for mounting a CR2032 lithium battery.

alix2d3 rtc battery footprint

There are several ways to do this: I thought that mounting a battery holder would make easier changing the battery (whenever it will be needed).

Unfortunately the battery holder was a bit too big: a “huge” condenser prevented me to solder it directly on the footprint, but using 2 90º angle pin headers to prolong the connections helped to place the holder a bit to the side.

battery holder battery holder extended pins

Here’s the final result …

battery holder placed

… and since then the board is running without problems …

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